How to have a water wise lawn
Having a green lawn not only looks great but green spaces have a positive impact on our mental health. However, keeping a lawn green uses a significant amount of our precious drinking water and often we use a lot more than we need to.
Lawns can be trained to be more drought and heat tolerant, strengthen your lawn by watering deeply and less often. Watering more than twice a week regularly will weaken your lawn, causing roots to grow shallow and to be more susceptible to hot days and water stress.
Generally, as a rule of thumb your lawn only needs 25mm of water per week. Watering more than this will either lead to saturation of the top layer of soil leading to runoff or will infiltrate too deep for lawn roots to absorb. Not only does this waste our precious water but it also leaches nutrients from your lawn’s rootzone, which goes either too deep for your grass to access, or it runs down the gutter out to the Great Barrier Reef.
The best time of day to water is early morning, later afternoon or early evening. This is generally when the wind and temperature is at its lowest and the sun isn’t causing significant evaporation. Watering in the middle of the day can reduce the amount of water making it to your soil by up 50%.
You can test how much water your sprinklers are putting out by putting flat bottomed containers on your lawn whilst your sprinklers are on.
25mm of water= 25 litres per square meter.
By watering your lawn efficiently, not only do you build a healthy lawn, but you conserve more water to potentially limit future water restrictions and you save money! Every litre over your lawn's requirement, is money down the drain.