Although many of us are in apartments that don't require the maintenance of a yard or green space, there are those who spend a great deal of time each weekend maintaining their lawn, big or small. Do you know when the right time to water is? Plants are easy — is the soil dry? Then water! Grass on the other hand, well not so fast!
Lawns are tricky things. They can feel like they require an exhaustive supply of resources and materials to maintain. When it comes to watering most know your grassy patches do require supplemental help from the hose, but how much, how often or by what method creates the least amount of waste?
To start, test your lawn by walking on it. It will tell you all by itself if it needs water. If the grass bounces back a few steps later, then things are just fine. If your footprints stay halfway or all the way down, then it's time to drag out the hose — though we suggest checking to see if rain is in the forecast first!
If you see water running off your lawn or puddles forming then you're using too much water at too fast of rate. Go ahead and turn the faucet down a little. The lawn can only use the water it soaks up and even if it's scorching hot and dry, it will still take a bit to absorb a tasty drink.
Don't be afraid to move your water source around, try setting a timer inside the house for 45 minutes. Relocate the hose each time it sounds until you've given your whole yard a refreshing cool down. It will help with run off and ensure every blade gets a taste of that sweet H20!
(Image: Flickr member Matt McGee licensed for use by Creative Commons)
Dirty Little Secrets of Tidy Families
Hillary & Michael's Refined Roost
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Nomade Express Slee...
How To Cook Fluffy, Tasty Quinoa
My Staple Summer Cocktail Recipe: Campari & IPA Spritzer
I'm a city dweller at heart who now has a patch of land with a little bit of grass. I'm of the mind that if it isn't wet enough outside to keep the lawn green, then it should be brown. I know this mentality is disallowed in some suburban communities, but the idea of watering a lawn just seems so ridiculously wasteful - even in places not suffering from drought (like here in the Northeast.) Herbs and gardens and perhaps some very pretty plants will get me to turn the hose, but grass... no.
I agree home body - it's only grass.
I'm with you guys - lawns shouldn't require any supplemental water or chemicals. It should just need to be mowed. If it requires more work than that, put in something other than grass.
I totally agree with home body. I have a big yard and I rarely water it. When it gets a little brown, it rarely dies, everything comes back to normal after a shower. It would feel like a total waste of our ressources to water the grass.
Hmm, maybe we've been lucky, but the only time we ever had to water our lawn in the last 7 years that we've lived here is when we reseeded it after it was decimated by construction work (tearing out old concrete, installing new fence and smaller patio, etc.). I don't even water my raised bed vegetable garden, and it does great. The only thing I water occasionally are potted plants that are in full sun, because they do dry out faster. We do get a good amount of regular rain where I live, but even so I see some people here watering lawns and other plants pretty often. I read that you can "spoil" plants by watering them too often--if you let them experience a bit of drought, they will send down deeper roots and be able to withstand dry periods better, but if you water them every time they start to wilt, they will continue to need that coddling to survive. That's been true in my experience, anyway!
Lawns are such a waste of time and resources. This book is very eye-opening and offers smart alternatives:
The Landscaping Revolution
Pshaw. I'm going to slowly pull out my grass and just have a clover lawn. No watering, stays green, attracts pollinators, and it's nitrogen-fixing!
Ditto to other comments here. Water may be plentiful for some of us, but that doesn't give us the right to waste it on lawns. Sorry if I sound judgmental, but this is an easy call for me.
I live in a desert, where everyone plants grass meant for a much moister climate, and I still don't water. This year has been record-breakingly wet, so I'm enjoying a green lawn, but if its more or less brown next year I won't be too worried.
Ditto on the clover lawn, we are working on killing our sod right now. We have not watered it in months, and it just will not die. Since it is too labor intensive to rip it out, we have opted for killing it with plastic covering (and I am pushing for a bit of tilling to even out the ground after all of it finally dies).
I just moved an we placed our dissassembled glass patio table top on the lawn for the afternoon and overnight. By midday the next day, that patch was dead. Maybe worth a try if you're actually trying to kill your grass... :)
As for clovers, aren't they really invasive? As in, will your clover lawn contaminate your flower beds?
I love it when the lawn is dry...in the spring, I have to mow every weekend. Now that we've been 8, maybe 10 days with no appreciable rain, I can finally catch a break. Which is good, since it's 96F today...like hell I'm pulling that mower around!
Regular cutting and no extra water in the spring force the roots of the grass to "reach deep" for ground sources and the moisture in the deeper soil. This helps it to survive in the dryer parts of the year.
I agree with home body completely. I own a home with a fairly large front lawn, and in 7 years, the only time it's been "watered" is when it rains. That includes grass and plants too.
i agree that watering is a waste. I only water the front to keep it from being a hazard. I'd love to have stone or some zeriscaping.
Some friends of mine bought a house over the winter, and discovered this spring that their front yard is full of strawberries! How cool! But they want to tear it up and replant grass, which to me is sad.
Clover is very invasive and attracts rabbits and deer. It's also very difficult to get rid of later, like when it starts taking over your flower beds and shrubs. There are better choices for ground cover, including many drought resistant varieties, such as sedum.
I have a lot of clover in my back yard here in Richmond, VA and over the last 2 very HOT weeks it has died in big patches and so the clover and grass are dying. The only stuff doing really well is the horrible crab grass which I'm trying to control by pulling it up by hand. So for me an all-clover lawn wouldn't work either. Any suggestions?
Living in a place of concrete grown tree, I marvel anytime I can stand barefoot on grass. The problem is that Brooklyn soil seems to reject it. I'm all for saving water and would rather do clover too, but just give me something green instead of mulch!