Lawn Watering Practices

We don't at all. If the rain doesn't take care of it, it's brown. We are under water restrictions so that those who do water can do so twice a week early in the morning or late in the evening. I'm in eastern Massachusetts.

I'm in south Louisiana. My lawn gets watered when it rains. If it dies, it dies. It's St Augustine grass - it comes back, no matter what.

We tend not to water at all. We are not usually under the same restrictions as in CA, but we have had droughts and have been asked not to wash cars, water lawns, etc. and when that happens, we let it go brown. On rare occasions we might water new grass (like when we were trying to grow a lawn after some major excavating) for half an hour every few days.

We have 3 acres and it's basically a mowed field.
We don't water at all and it stays green.
In drought years it goes brown, crunchy and dormant but it bounces back when the rain comes back.

In Northern Cali, we are restricted to 2 days a week. Our back lawn is crunchy and hay like. Fortunately, the front yard is a drought resistant garden, but it this is too much drought for a newly planted garden. We do water the front garden 2 x a week for 2 minutes per station.

We also collect the cold shower water and use it for plants in the backyard.

Never. My lawn is gorgeous and green, but I live in humid mid-Missouri.

If I lived in so-Cal, I'd turn my yard into a mini orange and lemon grove. :)

I'm near Sacramento and we run ours for around 20 minutes each station twice a week. Much of the grass is brown, as it's supposed to be right now in the drought, but the little bit of watering helps to keep the plants alive in our 90-105 degree heat. We are in the top 20% of water savers in our city.

For the most part, we don't have a nice "lawn" grass..... under the trees is St. Augustine, which likes lots of water, but in the back yard is bermuda, and part of the front yard is unknown... (wild, prairie type grass and weeds).

We have a 1/2 acre lot.

I keep the vegetable garden watered real well (hand water selected areas every other day).

As far as the front yard, if it has been really dry, I deep water the trees (2 fruit trees and a big Spanish Oak) probably once a week. Fortunately, we've had some real nice spaced out rains (unusual for Texas these last few years.) This deep watering keeps the St. Augustine grass well watered around the house. I usually put the hose on the ground in the drip line area and set it on a low flow, and let it just "flood" the area. That way, it gets a good soaking, and I don't lose as much to evaporation as I would if I were using a sprinkler. I go out and move it every once in a while, moving it around the drip line of the tree. I don't usually water the back yard.

Our area had been under water restrictions for several years. The severity of the water restriction depends on the general weather and condition of the water supply (aquifer and lake levels.)

Our water restrictions are usually limited to 2 days a week, and not between 10 and 6, also, unless hand watering. Hand watering can be done any day, any time.

We are near Sacramento. We water once per week for 15 minutes per station, in the middle of the night (so the heat doesn't evaporate the water before it can soak in). Our lawn is pretty much brown at this point, but the trees are hanging in there (which is the only reason we are watering at all right now).

In the northeast, we've always been taught to water deeply and less frequently. The roots grow deep and the grass withstands drought and bugs better if there is a strong root system. We tend to have rocky soil and some areas have a lot of clay, while areas near the shore have more sand, so that can affect drainage. But quick little waterings just wet the surface, and the roots stay near the surface to grab little bits of moisture - overall, that's not a healthy lawn. About 1 inch of rain or watering a week is enough - we put out a rain gauge or a simple dish to measure what we've used, and that's usually enough for the week.

We do have water restrictions in most towns and they recommend (or require) watering after 5 PM and before 9 AM - otherwise, most water is lost to evaporation.

Some people have wells and are not using the public water supply, so you do see signs that say "well water used" and that sort of thing. But it still makes me nuts to see misplaced sprinklers watering the street or people using hoses to clear away leaves or wash their driveways instead of sweeping them off.

My neighbor is Israeli and he has built a fantastic drip system for his vegetable garden so there is no mass sprinkling - all the water goes into the root system and slowly so the soil is really soaked.

We do have more rain that you have in California in the summer, so if we get a good soaking rain (one of those slow, overnight soft rainstorms is best), then we don't water at all.

We also let our grass grow longer in the hottest part of the summer - again, long grass retains more moisture and the ground stays cooler/moister. We don't mow a lot - we set the mowers higher so we only take off about 1/3 of the top growth, and don't cut it down close to the ground. (That changes in the fall when we do cut it close - less wear & tear in the freezing temps and less accumulation of grubs and other pests.

Most of us also mulch our lawn clippings rather than collect them in a bag - the mowers have that panel that closes off the chute, so the clippings fly around and get chopped up by the blade, then drop down into the lawn. Those clippings fertilize the lawn and provide a cooling layer of organic material to keep the roots from overheating.

Those of us who don't fertilize do use lime to offset the acidity of the pine needles - we have a lot of evergreens so we get a ton of stuff dropping onto our lawns!

And remember we have tons of oak and maple and hickory trees so the shade helps areas of our lawns. (The offsetting pain is that we have pine cones and hickory nuts and acorns to deal with!)

This may or may not work with your soil composition and climate, but the concept of deep water would apply everywhere.

Never. Lawns are a HUGE ecologic nightmare - weedkillers, pesticides, watering. We are working on gradually replacing ours with planted borders. The only care we do for our lawn is mowing. This year it is nice and green. Years with less rain, brown by August. It comes back in the fall.

Long Beach has had watering restrictions in place for several years. We are only supposed to water 3 days per week (Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays), before 9 am or after 4 pm. My sprinklers are on a timer, and I think the maximum they go on is 10 minutes per station.

Mymission, you can water 2x a week?! We are in McKinney and are on restrictions to water 2x a *month*. All the surrounding suburbs are on the same drought restriction as well.

Rain barrels seem to help quite a bit, but I wish our HOA would allow a grey water system.

We are on water restrictions in our part of Texas. We can only water on two days out of the week and not between the hours of 10-6.

We are doing ok so far this summer but the worst is yet to come.

Hubby has our lawn sprinklers to auto water the lawn every Thursday at 6pm.

Location: South Louisiana.

When I lived in So Cal, I was in an apartment but my parents who owned a house and my friends would water for about 20 minutes each day. I am in VA now and it rains a lot so it gets drenched about 2-3 times a week, and in the summer on days when it doesn't rain or thunderstorm, then we just leave it alone and it's still green

I don't have a lawn; the grass I do have doesn't get water unless I plan to dig it out and need to saturate the area first.

(I have a cottage garden topsy-turvy front yard and some grass in back.)

We water for the weather, but no more than every other day. Berry bushes setting fruit get first priority for my attention and then we give everything a nice drink every few days or so, as the heat necessitates. I live in the Portland area; we haven't had any drought warnings or limits on water but I try to be thoughtful in not over-watering, too.

We live in Sunland and our timer is set to water for 3 minutes, 7 days a week. However I understand that we are only supposed to water 3 days a week due to drought so I'm thinking of changing it to 3 times a week, 6-7 min. each day.

I live in San Diego. We have pretty well stopped watering the back yard and only water the front yard enough to keep the HOA from fining us for letting it die. I want to let it die and put something in that doesn't need so much water. We can't afford to keep watering.
We only water in the evening, after the sun has just about set. We maybe water once a week right now, we should water a couple times to be honest.

It depends on the rainfall but I have my sprinklers to each go 30 minutes early morning before the sun comes up. Oh, every other day.

Grass around here is already going dormant, so sprinklers are off, except for watering the patch where my vegetable garden is and the mulch beds. We don't want the bushes to die.