Exact answer: 30 minutes
The benefits of a well-maintained lawn
A well-kept lawn improves curb appeal, making a good first impression on guests and possible buyers. Healthy grass also provides great soil erosion and flood control, enhances groundwater quality, and aids in heat dissipation and temperature moderation in your yard. But how do you grow a healthy lawn?
The effects of a lack of water on your lawn
When grass is left unwatered for a lengthy period, it seeks shelter from water stress and falls dormant. As a result, it stops growing, resulting in a dark yellowish or brownish color. The leaves and stems have dried out and become brown at this time, but the underground components are still active.
In general, a well-kept lawn can withstand summer droughts without irrigating.
However, after 4 weeks without water, your grass may become yellowish or orange in color, indicating that it is severely dried up and requires immediate irrigation.
Basics of lawn watering
There are many different types of sprinklers on the market. Sprinklers make lawn watering easy and efficient by soaking the entire lawn. When your sprinkler system is turned on at the appropriate time of day, the moisture is absorbed into the ground as quickly as applied.
Setting a lawn watering schedule with the appropriate changes and frequencies is important. A lawn requires more water during hot or humid weather since it is more exposed to the sun, creating drought and breeding grounds for pests.
How long should you water your grass?
In general, it is preferable to water your grass deeply yet seldom. This approach promotes turfgrass to produce deep roots, which help it survive droughts.
Apply roughly 1 inch of water when watering the grass.
By placing multiple shallow containers on your lawn and running the sprinkler for 30 minutes, you can determine how long it takes your water sprinkler to distribute 1 inch of water. The depth of the water in the containers should be measured. The average depth multiplied by two equals the number of inches of water per hour emitted by your water sprinkler system, so you know how long to run it.
Watering a lawn three times a week equals one inch of water. Plants can be watered once or twice a week during seasons with a higher possibility of rainfall and less evaporation.
| Measurement | Duration |
| 1 Inch | 30 Minutes |
| Half inch | 20 Minutes. |
Other lawn irrigation factors
Determining how much to water the lawn, how frequently to water, and how long to water are all concerns that can only be answered by considering your soil, grass species, and weather.
A healthy lawn, like a garden, requires adequate soil. Your lawn soil should be well aerated and contain at least 4 to 5% organic matter. Test your soil if your grass is struggling despite your best efforts. You can get help through your local Cooperative Extensive Service.
Lawns can be planted with a wide range of plants. Choose the most suited type to the weather conditions in your area. Some varieties are more drought tolerant than others due to deeper root systems.
Cool, rainy weather allows you to take a break from lawn irrigation activities. If you have an automatic sprinkler system, check it periodically so you can turn it off when it’s not needed.
How much water should you give your lawn?
Overwatering your lawn, your water bill, and the environment will all suffer if you don’t water it properly. The amount of water required is normally 1 to 1.5 inches per week, although this might vary depending on your grass type, climate, soil type, and lawn age.
Established lawns
Generally, the top 6-8 inches of soil should be moist but not soggy, equating to 1 to 1.5 inches every week. Watering deeply but seldom promotes deeper root development and drought resilience over watering briefly every day. You can divide these waterings into twice-weekly watering during most of the year or three-times-weekly waterings during the hot summer months.
Newly seeded or sodded lawns
Newly seeded or sodded lawns require moisture in the top inch of their soil to support appropriate growth, but not so much that they become soggy. Instead of watering once or twice a week, take a mister and gently spray the newly planted regions once or twice a day, depending on the weather.
Keep the top 2 inches of soil moist as the seeds germinate. Once the grass has grown to a mowing height of 3 inches, you can reduce watering to twice a week. Then, moisten the soil 6-8 inches deep, just as you would an established lawn.
Watering cool vs. Warm-season grasses
To keep different grass types healthy and hardy, you must care for them differently.
Cool-season grasses
These grasses, such as rye, fescue, and bluegrass, grow rapidly in the fall. They’ll need about 1-1.5 inches every week until the growing season ends, which will be around when the first frost arrives. If you don’t want water cool-season grasses during a drought, they will go dormant but re-green once the rains return.
Warm-season grasses
Warm-season grasses, such as Bermuda, zoysia, St. Augustine, and centipede grass, grow the most in the summer. They require less water overall than cool-season grasses, yet they require extra water in the dead heat.
How to tell if there is plenty of water
Take a screwdriver and a measuring tape, and mark the 6-inch spot on the screwdriver with nail polish or paint. Poke the screwdriver into the soil every 15 minutes to check how deep the water has moved to see how long it will take to soak the soil.
Once the soil has been wet to the 6-inch mark, mark the time—this is how long you’ll need to water your grass each time. Use this handy trick to determine whether or not you need to water your plants: You should water if you can’t easily stick a screwdriver 6 inches into the soil.
Warm-season grasses, on average, require less water than cool-season grasses. Because of changes in rainfall and summer weather conditions, your region dictates how frequently you need to water.
In situations of heat, low humidity, drought, and high winds, grass requires the greatest water.
The type of soil you also have mattered: Clay soil retains water longer and requires less watering than sandy soil, which drains quickly (and therefore needs to be watered more often).
Conclusion
The grasses are the most important ecosystem habitat on the planet. Modernization has wrecked everything, and the clean air that humanity breathes is now the most polluted. The rivers, once incredibly attractive, are now drained of wastewater and debris. The forest, which once housed wild animals, is now used for human industrial purposes.
