Watering Your Lawn in the Summer Heat

Irrigation in Ashland and Newton, MA

The current weather conditions in New England can quickly damage unwatered and underwatered lawns and plant material. Please remember that during times of prolonged summer heat and dry weather plants, trees, flowers, lawn sod and seed need extra watering.

SEED hydroseeding, slice seeding and overseeding)

From the time of germination, seed is particularly vulnerable to death from drying and must receive sufficient water until it is a well rooted established plant. During hot and dry weather, new seed should be watered for ½ hour 3 times a day. As the weather cools down the time can be decreased to ½ hour 2 times a day (early morning and evening).

SOD

Immediately after installation, sod should be watered thoroughly. Soak ( ½ hr) the sod twice a day for the first week then taper off to a normal watering program of ½ hour once a day (early morning or evening). Remember that it takes several weeks for the roots to knit and drying occurs faster than with established turf.

SHRUBS

All shrub plantings in and around your lawn need watering daily during extremely hot dry summer heat. It is important that you get deep penetration of water in newly planted beds. This means running a hose directly on the plants until the water starts to puddle. Also, remember that large shrubs and trees need large amounts of water.

DO NOT RELY ON AN IRRIGATION SYSTEM TO PROVIDE ENOUGH WATER FOR NEWLY PLANTED TREES AND SHRUBS. Most irrigation systems were designed for the watering requirements of lawn areas.

FLOWERS AND GROUND COVERS

Plants should be watered every other day normally. In hot, dry weather they should be watered daily.

IRRIGATION

If you have underground lawn irrigation, you should adjust the watering time during the summer heat to ½ hour per zone or more for rotary heads and 15 minutes per zone for spray heads. IF YOU DON’T CURRENTLY HAVE AN IRRIGATION SYSTEM, NOW MAY BE THE TIME TO CONSIDER ONE.