KCnRichmond wrote:
You CAN water everyday if you can afford a good soaking and not just a
short
shot of water...

One problem with a complete soaking every day is that the surface never
dries, which creates one great host environment for fungus, grubs, and
insect eggs and larva. If you're keeping things completely wet (or even
damp), and things start to look even more dead (more brown, or the brown
turns to grey), then stop watering, and let it dry.

Never water in the evening, It
needs Mr Sunshine to help in the chemistry of things....

It needs Mr. Sunshine to help dry the surface so you don't create that
great host environment for all those pests. You don't want to water when
the sun is high and bright because of evaporation. The best compormise
between this all is to water at dawn to minimize evaporation, and
minimize the time that the surface stays wet.


While for most people the cost of excessive watering can be enough to
convince them to do the one inch all at once, once a week thing, there
is another reason not to over-water: Conservation. In many parts of the
country, even if the capacity of the pumping stations, filtration plants
and other infrastructure was increased, there's no more source water.
Any place that uses an underground auquafier, or places that use surface
water, but are going through a drought will have this problem

One only needs to look towards Wisconsin to see the seriousness of this
situation. The Transcontinental Divide, the divide between the Atlantic
Ocean and Missisippi River watersheds, runs just west of Milwaukee.
Until the last 20 years, the area west of the divide was mostly rural,
but it's turned suburban. The water level in the auquafier is dropping
rather rapidly now, and many of the water districts need to drill
deeper, and deeper wells, and still have problems. Meanwhile, the folks
in the city are limitted only by the capacity of the plants that process
Lake Michigan water.

Now, what should the limitted water west of the divide be used for?
Agraculture, industry, drinking, and cleaning? Or can a few people who
can afford the price be allowed to over-water their lawns? What happens
when the farmer in rural Waukesha County can't afford to drill a deeper
well, while some well-to-do guy in a Milwaukee suburb west of the divide
can afford to have a huge, green-lawned estate?

A lot of people don't see the attraction of huge expanses of lawn, but
there are a still people who do. And as long as kids need places to
play, lawns will be a desirable part of the landscape. But if the people
who love lawns don't start a reasonable watering regimen, lawns will no
longer be affordable to the middle or working classes.


To bring this all back around to the point: Don't water every day for
any extended period of time. It may be necessary for a week of seed
germination, or right after new sod is laid, but timing those events for
wetter seasons will allow Mother Nature to take care of those things
naturally.

An inch a week, once a week is good for the health of a lawn, it's
usually affordable, and it conserves water. It's a trifecta win.

--
Warren H.

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