Too MUCH Water???

JaxD – posted 16 April 2004 08:42

My lawn (St. Augustine grass, in Jacksonville, FL)looks terrible, and I HAD a lawn service doing the fertliizing for me! They guy spraying it said there was “too much water, that I need gutters, and to turn off the sprinklers until it shows signs of wilt”. I never thought you could have too much water, but it’s not like I was drowning it anyway. I had the sprinklers set for short watering (10-15 minutes 3x weekly) during the winter, and during the summer I run them 45 (1″) minutes 3x weekly. Anyway, my question is, has anyone ever heard of having too much water?? I got three other companies to come look at it, and they said it was winter damage, and that I need to water it MORE during the winter. How can I recover? I put down 360 plugs Saturday, but it looks terrible and I’m not sure how long I have before the ‘neighborhood cops’ send me a letter.

ted – posted 16 April 2004 08:55

watering is determined by the needs of your lawn, not a predetermined sprinkling schedule. get a 2 dollar rain guage and see how long it takes to fill it up to an inch of water from your sprinkler system, then see how many days it takes to evaporate back down to zero. then you know how often and how much to water. you may be watering too much or not enough! with your rainfall you may need to turn off the sprinkler system from time to time.

cohiba – posted 16 April 2004 12:55

I agree with ted that water depends on the lawn and more importantly the soil types in your rootzone. I always check with a soil probe to make sure the soil is moist, not wet. When you over water the capillaries in the soil that hold water are taking up space that should be air. Sandy soils need more water than loamy or clay soils. I feel that the worst thing for a home owner is to have the irrigation on a timer. Another trick would be to have a rain click installed on your system so that when it rains your system shuts off.

Good Luck

ted – posted 16 April 2004 13:37

yeah it’s called a mini clik and it’s available at your local irrigation supply store. some sort of ceramic disc inside that expands/contracts according to the moisture inside. it’s supposed to be fairly accurate, as well. I still like the rain guage.