How to water your lawn

As with humans, water is a basic element of survival for lawns. Through every stage of lawn growth and maintenance water is necessary - but it’s not just a case of turning on your sprinkler or standing with the hose and hoping you are providing the right amount of moisture. Optimum watering depends on three variables – soil, weather and timing. 

Ultimately, we’d like water to seep evenly into our soil and reach the grass roots for absorption, and not run off the surface and collect in puddles or run down the driveway. In practice we might have slopes and uneven surfaces or perhaps our soil is too sandy or clay based. Specialists would recommend for clay soils to water little and often to allow time for water to seep through the soil and absorb, whereas for sandy soils the advice is ‘long and slow’ as sandy soils don’t trap water easily and a long, slow water give it more chance to absorb. Puddling could be fixed by levelling off the area with good topsoil and re-seeding, best done in spring.

Experts agree that the best time of day to water your lawn is early morning or around sunset. During daylight hours water will evaporate faster and your grass roots will have to work harder to absorb it. The frequency of watering will vary according to your geographic location – that’s also where weather comes in. ‘Normal’ recommendations are to water every two to three days but you will work out an appropriate routine for your lawn and your climate. Familiarise yourself with a local weather forecasting source and then plan accordingly.