Boise Lawn Care
With many homes in the Boise area having access to pressurized irrigation, it’s important that you know when to water your lawn and how often. Numerous Boise home owners think of pressurized irrigation as an unlimited source of water. I hear, “I already paid for it, I might as well use it.”. While it is true that you did pay for it, it doesn’t mean that you should over use it to get your “monies” worth. In fact, that might end up costing you more money in the long run.
Over watering your lawn can lead to many issues including the following:
- Lawn Fungus
- Lack of depth for grass roots
- Water in your crawl space
- The need for more water then necessary
Best time to water your Boise lawn?
When is the best time to water your Boise lawn? It is always best to water your lawn in the early morning between 4a-5a. Early morning watering is advantageous because you have minimal evaporation taking place, higher humidity and lawn dew also help to get the maximum water to your lawn. Watering earlier in the morning also allows the lawn to dry out completely before night fall, which will help prevent many lawn diseases that thrive in dark and moist areas.
How long should my water cycles be?
It is best to water your lawn deeply to encourage deep root growth. Frequent shallow watering can lead to greater weed germination and shorter grass root depth. A lawn with a shorter root depth is more susceptible to disease and drought. To achieve a deep watering, you want the water to penetrate between 6-8″ to promote optimal root growth. With the soil in the Boise area being predominately clay, it can take 1″ of water to reach a 4-5″ depth. You can determine how long your watering system takes to produce 1″ of water by placing equal sized buckets or cans across your lawn and watering for 20 minutes. Measure the amount in the bucket and you can determine whether you need more or less on your watering cycle. One thing to note is that you want to avoid water run-off. If you need to water for a 30 minute cycle, but after 15 minutes you are already having water run off to the street or sidewalk, you may need to water in two cycles of 15 minutes with a 10 minute break in between to allow the water to better penetrate the soil.
Another way to determine how far your watering is reaching is to dig a small hole in your yard and see where the soil is moist to. Some Boise natives push a skinny screw driver into the soil to determine whether they are getting enough water or not. A screwdriver should have no problem penetrating soil that was just watered. If you can’t get the screw driver in the ground easily the desired depth, you may need to increase your water time.
How often should you water your Boise Lawn?
Now that you have all of this “free water”, how often should you be using it? I recommend watering your lawn only when it needs it. I know what your thinking right now, “yeah no sh*t!”. Please allow me to elaborate on that one. In order to promote the best root growth for your lawn, you want to train your lawn to be less dependent upon frequent watering. Around this time of the year, the middle of April, provide a deep water cycle and then watch your lawn closely afterwords. As your lawn starts to turn a blueish/grayish tint, provide another watering cycle. You will find that it will typically be after 2-4 days of the initial watering. Set your sprinkler timer up for that particular cycle and you should be good for a month or so until the weather gets warmer. You may find that in April you are only watering once or twice a week, while in May you are watering 2-3 times a week and at the peak of Summer in July and August you are 4-7 times per week. It’s ok to adjust your sprinkler system from time to time but please note that your lawn will not turn from yellow to green over night. Try not to change your sprinkler times too often as your lawn will have trouble adapting the eradicate watering schedule.
A couple of things to note:
- If your lawn is already looking good, you probably wouldn’t be reading this anyways, don’t change anything!
- If it is the middle of summer and you have been giving your lawn short and frequent watering, try not to change that either. Minimizing your lawns water intake after you have already conditioned it to receive water in a certain way can be really bad!
- Most lawns only have a few “problem” areas where there *might* be under watering. Try to take care of those areas by hand. One mistake that many people do is to up the water for the entire lawn when there is only a small area that needs extra water. If you do that, you might turn your small problem into a big one.
- Just because it is yellow or brown doesn’t mean that it is not getting enough water. Check with our local plant experts at Zamzows, you can bring a patch of your lawn in for them to identify the problem. It might be bill bugs or some other type of disease.
I hope you enjoyed this guide to Boise lawn care! If you have any comments or suggestions, please let us know. If you liked this or found it helpful, please share this with your friends!
Best,
Chase Craig
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