Watering properly is much more of an art than a science.
When watering in North Texas clay soil lawns, wet the soil to a 3"-4" depth. Normally, this should create enough reserve moisture in the soil that you will not need to water again for 3-4 days. It is best to water your lawn deeply and infrequently (only 2 days each week). One common mistake with irrigation systems is that too much water is applied on a 1-2 day basis, which can lead to disease problems and excessive growth.
Your North Texas lawn needs a minimum of 1 inch of water weekly during the summer months.
A regular deep watering, 2 days a week, is better than a light sprinkling on the lawn every 1-2 days, and will encourage stronger, healthier roots. Overwatering results in waste and promotes turf problems, such as disease and excessive weeds. If you are operating each zone of your sprinkler system for 10-20 min run times and/or every 1-2 days - STOP! Follow our watering instructions listed below, which will save you money on your watering bills, and your lawn will much better after 2-3 months of following our process.
This process consists of operating a zone for no more than 5 minutes, but repeating the process 4 times at 2 hr. intervals. This 1 hr. interval allows the water to be absorbed by the clay soil before applying another application of water. Running a zone for longer than 5 minutes causes runoff and only wastes water providing no additional benefit to your lawn.
Midnight to 9am is the best time to water.
Midday watering during hot, dry weather will waste water, since much of the water evaporates before being absorbed into the soil. Watering before midnight promotes the speed of diseases, as you are applying water to a lawn that is still too hot from the day's heat.
If the entire lawn shows symptoms of drought, water it immediately regardless of time of day. if there are yellow patches in the lawn, do not increase the amount of water applied, as this will only make your problems worse. If you have yellow patches, you probably have a sprinkler head issue.
The best way to water hills is to use lower precipitation rate nozzles to rotary heads, which apply water to the lawn at a much lower rate and allow the water to be absorbed into the ground without running down the hill.
Do not operate your sprinkler system when rainfall is occurring at least once a week!
The sprinkler system is there to water your lawn when Mother Nature is not doing the job for you. Continue to operate a sprinkler system when rainfall is occurring at least once a week only causes problems for your lawn, and it wastes your money too.
