What's The Best Time Of Day To Water Your Lawn?
If you are a first-time homeowner and are new to the world of lawn care, you may have already discovered that maintaining a healthy lawn is much harder than it looks. While you can spend plenty of money paying for special fertilizers and herbicides to keep your grass looking perfectly green, a lot of lawn care simply comes down to when and how you water — and the time of day you choose to water your lawn matters. In fact, according to most lawn care services, the best time to water your grass is in the early morning between 6 a.m. and 10 a.m.
This is because early morning watering has many advantages, including that it helps prevent the water from evaporating before reaching the soil. This is because mornings are often cooler and less windy than afternoons and evenings, especially in the summer. These conditions mean that less water is wasted and more reaches the roots of your grass for better growth and hydration. If, for some reason, you are unable to water your lawn in the morning, the second best time to water is when the day cools down again between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.
What are the worst times to watering your lawn?
The worst times of the day to water your lawn include the hottest hours, from noon to 3 p.m. and after sunset. The reason the hottest part of the day should be avoided is that, even though it may seem that your grass is the thirstiest at that hour, the sun causes more water to be wasted through evaporation. This means that less water will soak into the soil, and your lawn will end up drier than it would have been if you'd watered in the morning.
If you are trying to conserve water and prevent evaporation, it may seem that watering your lawn at night is a good way to do it because there's no sun. However, evening is a bad time to water your grass because there is too little water evaporation. Watering at night causes the grass to stay too wet for too long. This can create the perfect environment for fungal diseases, including the Rhizoctonia solani fungus which causes large brown patches that have to be treated with fungicide.
How often should you water your lawn?
While you may feel that your grass needs constant watering during the summer months, you should actually think twice before watering your lawn every day. This is because, unlike vegetable gardens, grass does better and becomes more drought-resistant if it is watered only a few times a week. The reason for this is that less frequent watering forces your lawn to grow deeper and stronger roots in search of groundwater. These strong roots will benefit the lawn and make it healthier and better able to survive tough conditions.
So, what is the best watering schedule for the perfect lawn? According to most grass experts, you should be watering your lawn once or twice a week and aim for a total of around one to one and a half inches of water per week. These measurements may vary slightly based on climate but will work well for most yards. Of course, if you get heavy rains, you should adjust your watering schedule to accommodate how many inches of water your lawn has already received.