Tips to Conserve Water for Your Ark. Lawn & Landscape

Smart Water/ Irrigation Practices for Your Ark. Lawn & Landscape

Did you know that outdoor water use is up to 30% of a family’s daily water usage? According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), over half of outdoor water use is dedicated to irrigating lawns and landscapes.

Of course, where you live determines how much water you use to irrigate your lawn and landscape. Indeed, if you live in drier climates, like Texas and California, you’ll need to use more water. However, if you live in Fayetteville, Farmington, Lowell, Cave Springs and Springdale, Ark., you won’t use as much water to irrigate your property. Yet, you still want to save money on your water bills as well as conserve our most precious resource, water.

Here are 13 tips to help you conserve water in your lawn and landscape:

1. For both your lawn and landscape, healthy soil is an important component in conserving water. Thus, a soil test will help determine what nutrients are missing in your soil. By correctly fertilizing your lawn to replace those missing nutrients, you’ll lay the groundwork, literally, to a healthy lawn and landscape. Healthy soil will be able to maintain healthy turf and other plants to better retain moisture and develop deep root systems.

2. Did you know that you don’t need to water your lawn every day? It’s true. Lawn experts recommend that you irrigate your lawn once or twice a week—and water it deeply rather than sprinkling it every day. Infrequent irrigation allows your turf to develop deep roots to find stored moisture in the ground. And a strong root system keeps your lawn healthier, greener, and stronger during a dry period.

3. Make sure you water your lawn at the right time of day. According to experts, watering between4 a.m. to 9 a.m. is the best time of day to irrigate your lawn and landscape. The air temperature is cooler which means less evaporation and water won’t sit on your lawn during the night… Thus, you reduce your turf’s risk for fungal diseases.

4. Make sure that you plant the right type of grass at the right place on your property. Bermuda grass (a warm season grass) and fescue grass (a cool season grass) work best in Benton and Washington counties’ lawns. Fescues work better in the shade and Bermuda grass works well in full sun.

5. Set your mower to take only 1/3 of the grass blade off per mow. Allowing your grass to grow a bit longer keeps it healthy and dense, leaving no room for weeds to get a foothold.

6. Invest in an irrigation system. Today’s irrigation systems come with weather, soil moisture, and other sensors to be able to control how much water is being used on your property and to eliminate wasting water. Additionally, you can install a timer on your irrigation system to go off in the early morning hours for a set amount of time. Do you have an older irrigation system? No worries. You can have the same irrigation tools retrofitted to your current system. Finally, you want to set your sprinkler heads to water your lawn and landscape only, not your driveway or sidewalks.

7. For the landscape, consider planting your beds in hydrozones where you place drought-tolerant plants in one bed and thirsty plants in a separate bed for more targeted irrigation. Plan your landscaped beds before you buy plants.

8. Add native plants, trees and shrubs to your Arkansas landscape. Native plants can handle dry spells better than non-natives as well as being more disease resistant.

9. Consider adding drip irrigation to your landscaped beds. Drip irrigation sends water directly to the root system and reduces the amount of water you use.

10. Don’t forget to add mulch to your landscape beds. Mulch will moderate soil temperature, hold in moisture, and reduce weeds.

11. Fertilize your landscaped beds only as needed. Again, a soil test will tell you what nutrients are missing from your flower beds. Don’t forget to fertilize your trees and shrubs to keep them healthy too.

12. If you choose not to invest in an irrigation system, invest in a soaker hose. Soaker hoses distribute water better compared to using portable sprinklers and standard hoses on your lawn.

13. You can check your moisture levels in your lawn and landscape beds using a handheld soil moisture sensor.

You have many options to reducing your outdoor water usage while keeping your Arkansas lawn and landscape beautiful and healthy. At A Clean Cut Lawn Care LLC, we can help you install an irrigation system as well as give you tips on keeping your lawn and landscape beautiful and healthy.

Do you need a mowing service for your Fayetteville, Farmington, Lowell, Cave Springs, or Springdale, Ark. yard? Then call us at 479-856-9800 or fill out our Request-a-Quote form.

Sources:
EPA. “Reduce Your Outdoor Water Use” 
Ibid. “Water-Smart Landscape: Start with WaterSense®”