Til what month do you water the lawn? My husband has been religiously watering the lawn and it is now October and he is still doing it. We live in Colorado. I am from Vermont (where we NEVER had to water) but I always thought it was more of spring summer thing? Isn't the grass just going to die from the cold/season change anyway? He insists that if we don't water it, it will die and the backyard will be a mud pit in the winter. I say it will just die anyway and it is a waste of water...but really I have no idea. He can be a bit stubborn an obsessive about things and I am wonder if this is one of them. Does he have a point? Right now I am just letting him do it but he did come after being away all weekend and fret because I hadn't watered it.
**We do have real winter here. Last year we got our first snowstorm just before Halloween, all the leaves come off the trees, etc. So everything pretty much dies and it will be really cold all winter-although we do have milder winters than Vermont!
Ok, good to know. Sounds like he is on the right track. Like I said, I haven't been making an issue of it, but water isn't free for us and I like to be environmentally conscious.
If you lived where I live, you water the lawn every month....12 months a year. We've had temps of 100 in November before. Crazy huh? LOL Seriously though you need to water in the fall, it will help save the grass from dying completely.
Grass does not die over the winter, it goes dormant. I'm also in CO (and from the NE where we never watered!) and I usually water a bit until the frost really starts kicking in. Backing off is good though the encourage the grass to back off on growth. Trees, especially conifers, need to be watered throughout the winter (deep watering once a month) if it's a low snow winter.
I live in Longmont, CO and I always water until the sprinklers get turned off for the winter (next week). You can cut a few minutes off the last few weeks, although this fall has been so dry I have not. I water once per month by hand in the winter, especially the trees and bushes. I usually do the grass once per month as well, but last winter I did not because we had so much snow that didn't melt. I've been told by landscapers to water every month in the winter unless you get 12 inches of snow. Most of the snow evaporates, so it doesn't soak in the ground like in the east. The first few years I lived here I killed a lot of bushes, until I learned about winter watering. I'd let your husband do it the way he is, because he's right. You should also aerate your lawn twice per year and that really helps you not to have to water as much and have a greener lawn. Yard care is very different here than in Vermont. I grew up in Michigan and then lived in Ottawa, ON before living here for the last 12 years, so I know.
Here in California, we water it year-round, although this time of year when it gets into the 70's and below, we water maybe once a week, instead of every other day. It depends on what kind of grass you have, too. Some types go dormant sooner than others.
I am in Colorado too (20 years now). Honestly, your lawn may completely die if you don't water it - as in dead & won't come back next year. Most of Colorado is considered "a high plains desert" because annual precipitation (including snow) is very low.
The fires that have been happening are pretty common and would be happening even if there were no humans to start them - because it's so dry.
Your best bet is xeriscaping (sp?) - at least where the kids don't run. Lawns use a lot of water and I can guarantee that there won't be enough water falling from the sky to keep it pretty for more than a couple of weeks/year.
So, while he may be a bit overboard, he's not wrong.
I agree with you. I would stop watering the lawn in Sept.
The fall is the best time to seed and water lawn, really! My husband has just spent a tireless weekend seeding and positioning sprinklers so the grass has a good root system on it for the winter and then will come back. Even though your lawn is already established and doing well, he should still water for the next month or two!
We're only a little south of you, and my husband was watering everything this past weekend. He says it's because of the dryness of our Colorado climate. After the frost - whenever that comes - he won't water unless the temps get really high again. I'm not into lawn work (not if I can help it!), but we've lived here some forty years and from the looks of our lawn he's getting it right.
I'm from California, and we watered year round. In Idaho, we water until the irrigation water is turned off - tomorrow!
Our grass starts slowing down growth wise once the days start getting shorter than the nights. By the end of Oct it's gone dormant for the winter and doesn't perk up again till till the days are longer and the temps are warmer (about May here). The only reason we were watering a few weeks ago is because we had a drainage ditch regraded, threw grass seed on it when it was finished and that week it was very hot and dry. We watered for a week, then we've had enough rain since then to sprout the seed without us watering it anymore. Although the top green part goes dormant, the roots can get established through fall, a bit of winter and early spring.
http://www.ehow.com/how_###-###-####_fall-care-grass.html
