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Do you know how to water your lawn, correctly?

By
Services for Real Estate Pros with Horton's Lawn Care L.L.C.

Proper watering techniques guarantee the heath and beauty of your lawn and plants. It's important to water your plants deeply. The appearance of your plants reflects how much moisture they have. Yellow, drooping leaves indicate over-watering, while grayish leaves and wilting indicate under-watering. If you can leave a footprint on the grass, it is also an indication of under-watering.

Look at your lawn and plants carefully before watering them to gauge the right amount of water they need. It's best to water early in the morning before 10 a.m. because evaporation is less during these hours. Evaporation is also less during the night, but night watering can encourage fungal infestations.

Your lawn benefits most when it receives 1 to 1.5 inches of water all in one sitting as opposed to small waterings a few times per week. To help with measuring the water you are using I suggest using an empty tuna can as they are typically just over 1 inch tall. Your watering schedule will depend on the rainfall as well because including rainfall you do not want you lawn to receive over 1.5-2 inches of water. So in the Spring and Fall adjust your watering accordingly. Also, bear in mind that clay soils need less watering than sandy soils.

Leaving grass clippings on your lawn is generally a good thing, but when thatch starts to build up at a height more than half an inch, it's time to dethatch your lawn. Doing so will allow the water to access the roots of your grass rather than just slide on the surface. Aeration is also a great technique for allowing air and water to properly enter the ground and your lawns roots.

Conserving water is an important aspect of lawn care, especially in areas where water is limited. Make sure that your watering equipment is working properly as broken sprinklers and hoses waste a lot of water. If you're using sprinklers, set it to water only your lawn and not the pavement, driveway, or sidewalks. You can also mix in peat moss or mulch with your soil in flower beds which retain a lot of moisture needed by your plants.

Horton's Lawn Care L.L.C. offers many services to assist you in the proper care, maintenance, and beautification of your lawn including: aeration, detaching, lawn rolling, re-seeding, granular fertilization, lawn mowing, weed whipping, edging, hedge trimming, flower, tree planting, landscaping, spring clean ups, fall clean ups, and snow removal. They currently provide lawn care services in the Genesee County Michigan area primarily in Burton, Davison, Flint, Flushing, Grand Blanc, Swartz Creek. For a Free Estimate call Chris @ (810) 877-9655.

Let us show you how beautiful your lawn can look.

Sean Allen
International Financing Solutions - Fort Myers, FL
International Financing Solutions

wow...great post and the first one I've seen dealing with watering lawns which is extremely important for us since we are only allowed to water the lawns one day a week because of the draught. Thanks for sharing.

Sean Allen

Apr 02, 2008 04:02 PM
Katie Graham
Cherry Creek Properties, LLC - Denver, CO
Denver Real Estate
Good information. I've read quite a bit about this lately and I know that very few people know about proper lawn watering techniques.
Apr 02, 2008 04:08 PM
Rosalinda Morgan
Brookville, NY
"The Rose Lady"
Chris - Great post on lawn care.  Thanks for sharing.  I had a lawn service the last two years.  This year, I'm doing my lawn myself organically.
Apr 02, 2008 04:08 PM
Chris Horton
Horton's Lawn Care L.L.C. - Burton, MI

Sean & Pilar- you only need to water the lawn once a week it is actually best to give it a good soaking once a week like I stated in my post :-D

Katie- yes in my line of work I run into tons of homeowners who do not have the slightest clue, but will not hire someone like myself to help properly take care of the lawn and do not have the knowledge to do so without some help so I like to put posts like this out from time to time.

Rosalinda- I find that organic lawn care is pretty much nothing more than letting your grass grow higher than "nonorganic" however there are alot of different opinions on how to do organic, and I have not been able to read all of them of course, my lawns that I do through this process of organic actually turn out really nice, and do not have many weeds. If you could please let me know if the organic you have found differs from this process as I am always looking to expand my knowledge of lawn care processes. Thank you very much and good luck.

Also thanks to everyone and I hope that this will help you all :-D

Apr 02, 2008 04:37 PM
Rosalinda Morgan
Brookville, NY
"The Rose Lady"

Chris,

Have you heard about the company called Gardens Alive?  I used a lot of their products.  I have used their lawn products few years ago and my lawn was lush and healthy.  Then my husband decided he had no time to take care of our lawn and so we switched to lawn service.  Last year, my lawn looked so awful so I am going back to Gardens Alive. 

Apr 03, 2008 03:09 PM
Chris Horton
Horton's Lawn Care L.L.C. - Burton, MI
Rosalinda- I had not heard of them until now, but I think I found their website which is great because I have a customer who likes to have her lawn fertilized but we stopped because she purchased a puppy last summer and neither of us want it to get sick or even worse just to kill a few weeds (she has less than anyone else in her subdivision even without fertilizer). I will run a few of these products by her and see if she would be interested in trying them out. Thank you very much for the suggestion.
Apr 03, 2008 04:09 PM
Cindy Bryant
Redesign Etc. Home Staging - Houston, TX
"Houston Home Staging Pros"
We have clay soil here, they call it gumbo.   It's terrible, with St. Augustine, and a mix of bermuda, I hate when the lawn guys don't bag it- it gets that dead look from the bermuda thatch.  We get quite a bit of rain, but do go through dry spells, we are battling fire ants right now.
Apr 03, 2008 04:29 PM
Chris Horton
Horton's Lawn Care L.L.C. - Burton, MI
Cindy- Clay soil is terrible anywhere that has it. Unfortunately I do not have alot of knowledge of the 2 grass types mentioned as they don't grow here in MI. Bagging the clippings is great as it helps prevent much of that thatch build up (it still happens just at a much lower rate). If your lawn care providers don't offer bagging even if you want it I think I would switch providers, unless everything else is great and you don't mind the thatch as it can be removed through dethatching or sometimes even breaks down on its own. To help keep your grass greener throughout the dry spells I suggest using a fertilizer (or an organic product, Rosalina a fellow AR member, just informed me of a company called Gardens Alive that she really likes, and has used that appears to be all organic) that has drought protection. I know there are chemicals that get rid of ants as well (atleast up here, so I am sure they have them down there as well). Goodluck, and I hope this helps :-D
Apr 03, 2008 04:49 PM