Several years ago during the days of rationing how often one was allowed to water their lawn, one of my neighbors asked me if I was cheating. My lawn was quite healthy and greener than the average in the neighborhood. This fellow knew me pretty well, so he was somewhat kidding around, yet did wonder, "How can your yard look so good?" The answer lies in the fact that I never "overwater" the grass. Over the years I am amazed at how many homes I have listed for sale on the market and as I walk through the yard, it's like walking through a marsh. More often than not, what happened is that the owners simply had no knowledge of how often they should be watering. Many times if they had bought the home new, then had it landscaped, the landscapers who installed the sod would set the sprinkler system clock to come on every day and with a fairly heavy amount of water to be applied. Indeed, newly sodded lawns need watering every day for ten to fourteen days to enable the new sod's roots to get established.
What many people do not realize is that after the first couple of weeks, the sprinkler clock needs to be reset for the frequency of watering. At this point, the landscapers are long gone and there is no one around to advise the owner of this. So...many owners would end up for years watering the lawn every day! Here's what I have found to be best for the health and heartiness of your Denver area bluegrass. We want the roots of the grass to be forced to go deeper looking for water. I set my time clock to come on twice a day for ten to fifteen minutes per zone. Once in the morning before the sun comes up and in the evening after the sun has gone down. As you get to "know and learn" your yard, you will know which zones need more or less minutes. And...when it rains I turn my time clock to the "rain" mode so that it does not activate the sprinkler system as the set time frequency rolls around. Furthermore, I will not turn the sprinkler clock back to normal mode until I actually see a tiny amount of "stress" in the grass. This saves water and therefore saves me money. The benefit to the grass is that the roots are forced to go deeper looking for water. Never hesitate to contact me with a question about maintaining your home and yard.
