Watering Your Lawn

If you drive by a house with a gorgeous front yard and especially notice how lush, green, and perfectly cut the grass is, you might wonder how you could ever achieve such beauty in your yard. Though important things like mowing, trimming, and fertilizing all come into play, the most important part of lawn care would arguably be how often you water your grass. Those nice yards we mentioned above? Every night they are dumping hundreds of gallons of water on their grass and they pay a pretty penny for it, too--if the time and money you will have to put into your yard is worth it for the aesthetic beauty you can get out of it, this is the article for you. Read on if you are interested in how much water you need to put on your lawn. We will also briefly cover Colorado Springs's current and upcoming water restrictions and how that will inevitably affect your watering abilities. 

THE AMOUNT OF WATER YOUR LAWN NEEDS will vary depending on what grass you have (crabgrass, Kentucky Bluegrass, etc.) and what the condition of your soil is. As a general rule, the more water the better, however, as with all plants, overwatering can also hurt or even kill your grass--so be careful. As an average rule, an established lawn requires 1 to 1.5 inches of water per week (with a full sprinkler system, it will take around 30 minutes to water a lawn 1/2 of an inch). However, often lawns in Colorado Springs will require more water due to our hot, dry climate. Additionally, we receive very little rain compared to other parts of the United States and we have to make up for that with water from our sprinkler systems. In Seattle, almost no one even has sprinkler systems because the natural rain does it all for them--Colorado residents certainly don't benefit from that! Every yard will be different in how much water it requires, and when it comes down to it, it is up to you how much water you can and/or are willing to put on your lawn every week. 

PICKING OUT A SPRINKLER SYSTEM is one of the hardest parts of watering your lawn. If you bought a house that did not already have a sprinkler system, it will be extremely expensive to install an underground one (anywhere from $1500-$3500) depending on your soil, landscape, location, climate, and many other factors. Another option if your house did not come with an underground sprinkler system is to buy a few rotating sprinkler heads that attach via a hose to a spigot on the side of your house. Then you can run these every night or every couple of nights and probably get around the same amount of water onto your lawn as you would be able to with an underground sprinkler system. There are a couple of issues with this way of watering your lawn, though: you won't get as consistent watering over your entire yard as you would with a calibrated underground system, so some areas of your yard might grow much more than others. Also, this requires a lot of work and it also means you have to remember to set up the sprinklers whenever you want to water, unlike an advanced underground system which is all automatic and does the "thinking" for you.

Anyways, if your house did come with an underground sprinkling system or you decided to spend the money to dig up your yard and install one, then there are a few things you can do with all modern systems to automate the watering process. The first thing you can do is set the sprinkler to always come on at a certain time each day or night, or even only on specific days (say, run from 6:00-8:00 PM every Monday and Thursday). This is extremely helpful as it means you don't have to remember to do anything related to water for the entire summer. The other thing you can do with an automated sprinkler system is only set certain sprinkler heads to run at certain times. Using the example from above, say after the entire system has run from 6-8 PM on Mondays and Thursdays you set a couple of sprinkler heads to run for another twenty minutes in areas of your yard that are trampled more often by feet and don't get as much fertilizer on average. This gives you even more control and allows you to even out the growth of all the parts of your lawn.

WATER RESTRICTIONS are already affecting how Colorado Springs residents water their lawns, and they will only continue to do so. In 2023 alone, the city council voted to add more water restrictions in how often you can water your lawn and wash off hardscapes with a hose. These are the rules they added, and how they will affect you as you water your lawn:

1. You can water only three days per week: you get to pick which three days between Sunday and Saturday, but no more days than that can you put water on your yard. This means you have to choose wisely and make sure to set your automated sprinkler system (if you are using one ) so that it isn't running more often than is legally allowed. 

2. During the summer months, you can only water before 10 AM and after 6 PM: This is so that water doesn't evaporate as much as it will during the hotter times of the day. This is good watering practice anyway, as your grass will get the most benefits from the water during the cool of the day. Prioritize doing your watering at night, which will be best for your grass and for keeping you out of trouble with the government.

3. Don't let water pool on hard surfaces: Keep your sprinkler system (whether underground or aboveground) from spraying too much water on your hardscapes where the water will be wasted. Give it all to your grass!

4. Repair your leaking system (this only applies to underground systems) within 10 days: You only have this amount of time to get an inefficient underground sprinkling system fixed, so get on it fast once you realize or are notified that you have a leak. This wastes a ton of water and is also bad for your soil. 

These water restrictions will most likely not get in the way of your watering needs, as you can still water three days per week and these laws will force you to water during the best time of day--the morning or evening. Embrace the restrictions, don't fight them--your lawn can still thrive even with these limitations. 

That's a lot of information, and we hope it helps you learn how to more efficiently water your lawn, pick out the best equipment, and work around the pesky water restrictions. Your lawn can truly thrive if you use these best practices while sprinkling. 

Published August 21st, 2023.

Vorel, Martin. "Lawn Sprinkler Watering System." Libreshot, 6 Jul. 2017, martinvorel.com/">Martin Vorel</a>. Accessed 21 Aug. 2023.