Currently, our area is experiencing a rain deficit of 20 inches. As you can see, our lawn is not a pretty sight. Bill will occasionally say, “Guess I need to water the grass.” I respond with “The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of God stands forever. If God wants our grass watered, He will do it Himself.” He will shrug at me and walk away.
To me, watering the yard is like throwing money in the street. I watch the water come out of the sprinkler, cascade across the grass and run out into the road, forming a little river into the gutter down the hill. I want to chase it. Scoop it up. Bring it back. Maybe I could build a little dam or build a tall wall to keep the water in… or, I could just hide the hoses from Bill. That’s a lot cheaper.
I do consider the price we pay by not watering our yard, especially when the grass crunches and stabs under my bare feet. But, when I pass our neighbors overgrown, well-watered grass, I picture each blade as a dollar bill, waving at me.
Will I ever water the grass? If the time comes that we place our home on the market, yes. Curb appeal has a lot to do with the purchase of a home, and at that point, it becomes an investment that will reap a healthy dividend. However, I will still be careful to water my grass in a way that gets me the most bang for my buck:
- Water only when the 30% to 50% of the grass takes on a blue-gray tint, begins to curl up or wilt and loses its bounce.
- Check your soil. If it is damp, hold off on grabbing the hoses.
- Water until it has penetrated 6 to 12 inches to encourage root growth.
- If the water begins to run off before it is absorbed, turn off the water and wait for it to sink into the soil and then turn the water back on.
- Water in the morning so the heat does not evaporate the water before it has a chance to soak into the soil. If you water in the evening, you could be inviting turf diseases to come camp out on your property.
- Arrange the sprinklers so they water your grass and not the street, sidewalk, driveway or neighbor’s lawn… and watch to make sure your neighbor does come nudge your sprinkler in his direction.
Here in Southern Arkansas, we are experiencing severe drought conditions, especially out here in the country where I live. I do water my grass, but that’s because the wildfire danger is so high. I water only in the mornings, and only twice a week. I do this to help just in case of a wildfire (my hubby & I are volunteer firefighters, and we’ve responded to 12 calls so far in the last 7 days), it will slow down the fire just a little providing us a few extra (and important) minutes to get out. This is strictly for a safety measure. We also had all the tree’s cut that were really close to our home.
I had not thought about the need for watering in areas prone to wildfires. That is a very good point. I always hate wildfire season because of what we see on the news. We are blessed to be in an area where the humidity keeps this from being a large issue. Never really though of humidity as a blessing before now. LOL
We water, and here’s why we do. Our property is a steep slope, and our house is down slope from the road. The drainage was engineered well, but depends upon our grass holding in the turf; without it, the erosion would end up causing flooding in our house, or worse (erosion of the pad the house sits on). Sooo, we have to water when it doesn’t rain, and we live on one acre. I hate it! I also see dollar signs, as well as just hating using up all that water. If we didn’t live in this particular situation, I’d just let the grass shrivel up and not sweat it. That’s what we used to do at the house we lived in before. It always comes back once it starts raining again anyway.
Right now I’m working on letting a big chunk of the acre grow back to its natural state. It takes work so that invasive weeds don’t take over, but I can’t wait to have that big area NOT have to be watered anymore, once some trees and shrubs grow up enough to not worry about the grass.