Watering at night

[scruff33]

Conventional wisdom says it's best to water the lawn early in the morning. Watering at night is risky because cool, wet ground is just asking for a lawn fungus. Makes sense.

But... how risky is it? All of my neighbors pull out the sprinklers in the evening, and their lawns all look just fine. Living in the midwest we get a lot of hot and humid days. That usually translates to early evening storms and showers. Yet nobody mentions this as being a potential lawn problem. How is that any different than sprinkling at night?

[mark123]

Watering at night is much better than not watering at all. Sure watering in the morning is ideal but do it when you can. I'm sure not going to take time off of work to just water my lawn.

[scruff33]

Originally Posted by mark123

I'm sure not going to take time off of work to just water my lawn.

LOL. Now that would be dedication! What I find myself doing is setting up my sprinklers (spigot and hose method) in the appropriate zones the night before. I set my alarm to go off at 4:00am, get up and turn on the water, then back to bed. Before I leave for work a little after 8:00am I turn them off. Seems like a lot but my tuna cans still only average about 1/2" of water after all that time.

Kind of a pain, but its supposed to be the best time to water. From what I've seen most standard automatic timers only allow a maximum of 2 hours.

[upidstay]

They sell timers for sprinklers. You can get a nice one at the Depot for around $50. You actually get up at 4am to water your lawn???

As far as the original post goes, NO you should never water at night if you can avoid it. Early morning is best as far as water efficiency goes. A mid afternoon watering is great, as it cools the plants off, but is very inefficient due to evaporation loss.

[maustm]

Yeah, I used to have a multizone sprinkler timer from HD, It had a 4 way spigot splitter, a timer and some controllers that connect to the hoses, I could set it and leave it. It was not bad for the smaller yard I had. I actually ended up running hoses along the 2x4's in my fence and put some "fixed" sprinklers in. I think it was made by sunmate. One thing I did have to do was tighten down my spigot so there was no leak when I left the water in the on position, and they recommend ou have an anti-siphon spigot.

[Kiril]

Install a real irrigation system and be done with it.

[rainbowss]

Watering at noon is much..much..much better than watering at evening/morning. Get one of timers from home depot and an oscillating sprinkler and water like .25inch at noon every other day. Even though I got a Hunter system installed which I have yet to open for the year, I like the way oscillating sprinkler sprays... almost like in mini cycles. Try this and you will see green. Even the grass you think are dead from winter will wake up flourishing. At least, it did for me.

[ajslands]

Originally Posted by rainbowss

Watering at noon is much..much..much better than watering at evening/morning. Get one of timers from home depot and an oscillating sprinkler and water like .25inch at noon every other day. Even though I got a Hunter system installed which I have yet to open for the year, I like the way oscillating sprinkler sprays... almost like in mini cycles. Try this and you will see green. Even the grass you think are dead from winter will wake up flourishing. At least, it did for me.

How bout 3/4"-1" instead.
Posted via Mobile Device

[rainbowss]

i dont see the logic. i'm not watering for a tree

[rainbowss]

Forgot to add, I believe watering deeply not only wastes water which grasses will not receive but it will leech the nutrients from the top soil further down through osmosis which increases the need for grasses to be fertilized.

Deep watering is usually intended for plants/trees that grow roots wayy down or if you want to flush down too much fertilizer, etc. No matter how deep and infrequent you water, grasses will not ever, ever, ever grow roots that long. That is like saying, if I jump high enough, maybe I will be as tall as Mr. Jordan.

I think this is another myth of the internet. Silly internet, grasses are for kids.