AMARILLO, TEXAS -- Our exceptional dry spell has had its effect on our lawns, just driving around town we have noticed people watering their more frequently and in the middle of the day, but is it effective?
According to Justin Stokes at Coulter Gardens, watering an inch every time should keep your lawn hydrated.
Which depending on what kind of system you have could be anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour.
"A lot of times we'll recommend putting an old cookie sheet or something out there or a dish or anything to hold water and see how long it takes to get that inch of water down."
In these drought conditions some people think watering more is the best answer but according to stokes thats not the case.
"When we're over 100 degrees we normally recommend watering three times a week and if we drop down into the low ninties then twice a week should be sufficient, much more than that and you'll start causing root rot on tree's shrubs and things that don't like quite that much water."
Meaning twice a day every day is just too much.
"It's too frequently a lot of times people that're doing that are watering for 5-10 minutes each time they water, that doesn't allow the water to penetrate and actually get the grass root a little bit deeper where they need to. so if they'll water longer and less frequently a lot of times it'll make their whole yard look a lot nicer."
Another tip, stokes says raise your mower a couple of notches higher than usual because longer grass retains more moisture than extremely low cut grass.
When asked when was the best time to water stokes said anytime in the morning between five and seven am.
