Watering amounts & times

[Will.S]

I need some advice on watering my lawn of St Augustine grass.
Im setting my zone timer starting at 3am and set to 3 times per week. Is this enough
Is 15 minutes each zone enough water ?

Thanks. Will

[Bill14564]

I need some advice on watering my lawn of St Augustine grass.
Im setting my zone timer starting at 3am and set to 3 times per week. Is this enough
Is 15 minutes each zone enough water ?

Thanks. Will

If you are in the Villages you have recommended watering days and times (https://www.districtgov.org/services/utilities/irrigation-schedules/).

I have mine set to 20mins for grass and 10mins for plants, twice per week starting at 3AM.

[retiredguy123]

That sounds about right, but grass needs more water than shrubs. I would use 10 minutes per zone for shrubs and 20 minutes for grass. Three days per week is fine, but I think most people only water 2 days per week. A lot depends on how your lawn looks.

[Pondboy]

You really need to put out cups / cans and measure the amount of water your irrigation system sprays per zone.

St Augustine grass needs 1 to 1.5 inches of water per week as a minimum.

It’s best to spread this amount out over two days watering cycles. In the heat of the summer you might need to add a third day and put down an additional 1/2”.

It’s also a good idea to pause your watering cycles so you don’t oversaturate the soil and have a lot off runoff. So have different start times on the same zone….give it about a half to an hour break. Hopefully I explained that right.

Starting at 3 AM is good. You don’t want water sitting on your grass blades for too long as it promotes fungal growth. Watering during the late morning / day is no good as more of the water will be lost to evaporation than what reaches the roots.

Best not to ask how long others are watering. To many variables……for example, I have low flow irrigation heads on a west facing lawn in sandy soil. I water for 80 minutes twice a week. In the summer, I add another 40 minutes to that. My partially shaded side lawn gets half that amount.

[Altavia]

From Deans.

[rjm1cc]

?? You can probably get away with once a week if you keep an eye on the grass. You need to water with enough water to go down into the ground to encourage the roots to go deep. It depends on how much water your system puts out but I do mine about 60 minutes. Recommended is about 90 minutes. My lawn is about 10 years old. First year or two you probably want to water twice a week in the summer and maybe 90 minutes.

[Kenswing]

I water twice a week.
Zone 1. Planters. 25 minutes.
Zone 2. Front lawn. 35 minutes.
Zone 3. Side yards. 15 minutes.
Zone 4. Rear yard. 20 minutes.

Each zone runs for 10 minutes. Moves to the next zone for 10 minutes and repeats until all watering is complete. Gives the water a chance to soak in between cycles.

[biggamefish1]

There is no all-around perfect answer here to watering your grass and gardens. For now, we have been in a drought, just meaning mostly no rain, and besides that, our super low humidity and dry winds above 10t sucks all the moisture from what you are only providing with the generalized 2 or 3 days a week water that is normal for this time a year normally. Look around at all the yards that are wind-burned and dry today. Look at a weather app and water when the winds are low, and yes, water every day at that time. Divide your recommended watering times for the two or three days by seven and water every day at the right time. There is no set-it-and-forget-it setting for your irrigation timer; it is up to you, as the owner, to pay attention to our weather patterns. What is an extra $25 dollars a month to keep everything hydrated?

[Bill14564]

There is no all-around perfect answer here to watering your grass and gardens. For now, we have been in a drought, just meaning mostly no rain, and besides that, our super low humidity and dry winds above 10t sucks all the moisture from what you are only providing with the generalized 2 or 3 days a week water that is normal for this time a year normally. Look around at all the yards that are wind-burned and dry today. Look at a weather app and water when the winds are low, and yes, water every day at that time. Divide your recommended watering times for the two or three days by seven and water every day at the right time. There is no set-it-and-forget-it setting for your irrigation timer; it is up to you, as the owner, to pay attention to our weather patterns. What is an extra $25 dollars a month to keep everything hydrated?

I would hesitate to divide by seven and water everyday. Staying with the recommended days and hours helps keep the water pressure up. Dividing by seven could result in too little water to penetrate the soil leading to poor water retention and shallow roots.

[Will.S]

Thanks for al the great advice..especially about the recommended Village watering schedule..
Thanks. Will

[mike234]

I need some advice on watering my lawn of St Augustine grass.
Im setting my zone timer starting at 3am and set to 3 times per week. Is this enough
Is 15 minutes each zone enough water ?

Thanks. Will
if you are watering in the dark at 3 a.m. how would you know if any of your sprinklers have exploded?......if it is light out, at least either you could tell, or a neighbor could tell you.....its a huge amount of water coming out of an exploded sprinkler head...

[jimkerr]

You should only need to water 2 days a week. The time depends on the types of nozzles you have on your sprinklers.

MP heads need to be set at 50 minutes. Sprayers should be around 25 minutes. Rotors should be 40-50 minutes per zone. As the heat and humidity increase, you might need to add a third day.

[bowlingal]

Mike234. that's why you need to do a sprinkler checkup during daylight every so often. Never water during the day. Winds during that time will defeat your purpose of watering.

[Rzepecki]

These websites should help answer your questions:

Irrigation Schedules | TheVillagesWaterWisdom (https://www.waterwisdomuniversity.com/irrigation-schedules)


Urban Landscaping and Irrigation - MREC - UF/IFAS - University of Florida, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences - UF/IFAS (https://mrec.ifas.ufl.edu/extension/water/irrigation/)

[rsmurano]

Why not just get a smart sprinkler controller and forget about it. If you don’t, you will be 1 of the thousands of homes watering your lawns while we are getting a downpour. Then, if you want the deluxe setup, I got my own PWS that my SMART sprinkler controller runs off of. I know exactly how much rain I have received, what the prediction of rail is and how much rain we are supposed to get, then the smarts of the controller will operate off all of those stats and run each zone for the appropriate number of days for a specific amount of time per zone.
With these smart devices, you can turn on restrictions so if it needs watering, you only water on these days, or you have no restrictions on which days to water on and it will run when it needs too. I click on the calendar for the coming month and I can see exactly when it’s going to water, and for how long of time per zone. It updates this calendar everyday because the weather is unpredictable. I’ve used these in my last 3 houses and have converted a dozen friends over to them

[MorTech]

You will need to water more mid-April thru mid-June (hot,dry,windy) than in rain season. 90F with 25% RH and 15 mph wind sucks the life out of everything. Smart sprinkler controllers are just not that smart :)

[Scotts8826]

I'm closing on a house next week. I will be a Snow Bird and not present during the summer. Is it typical for Snow Birds to leave their irrigation systems on during their absence?

[retiredguy123]

I'm closing on a house next week. I will be a Snow Bird and not present during the summer. Is it typical for Snow Birds to leave their irrigation systems on during their absence?
I think most snowbirds leave their irrigation system on. However, if you do, you really need an irrigation company, or at least a home watch service to monitor the system. If you have a broken sprinkler head, it will be very difficult to deal with it from out-of-town.

[CFollansbee]

Will, let me encourage you to do a test run on your sprinkler system. Start with the recommended times and see if you get any run off. At the time of the run off, that would be your timeframe for that zone. (Our front yard has a slope to it and water runs off pretty quick. So we have to water that zone with minimal time but more often, not to waste money with it going down the drain.) As others have said, there is no 1 correct answer other than pay attention to your minutes in each zone to see what your grass requires. Sometimes, you might even get help from your neighbors system because it sprays into your yard. My husband is always checking our system and he runs it manually.

[Altavia]

I think most snowbirds leave their irrigation system on. However, if you do, you really need an irrigation company, or at least a home watch service to monitor the system. If you have a broken sprinkler head, it will be very difficult to deal with it from out-of-town.

Agree on having a irrigation company periodically check the system.

Flume is an option for monitoring your irrigation system. it can easily pay for itself automatically catching one broken head.

Flume Water | Smart Home Water Monitor | Water Leak Detector (https://flumewater.com/)

[NoMoSno]

Do a tuna can test for each zone.
Every system is different. Times will vary.
St. Aug should get 1"-1-1/2" per week over a couple days.

[Miboater]

As others have said you do need to test how much water your sprinkler heads are putting out. My Hunter MP heads takes 45 minutes to put out a 1/2 inch of water. The Lawn Care Nut utube channel recommends 1/2 inch of water every 3 days and that is working well for me. I would also recommend getting a Rachio or other wifi controller and have the rain skip feature turned on.

[Accidental1]

I'm closing on a house next week. I will be a Snow Bird and not present during the summer. Is it typical for Snow Birds to leave their irrigation systems on during their absence?

I only snowbirded for a year, but yes it's typical to leave the irrigation system on. No irrigation and an abnormally dry/hot summer wouldn't be good. I changed out my irrigation controller to a b-hyve which can control from your smart phone. I never had any problem with access to the b-hyve (i.e. dropped wifi etc) in the year I snowbirded or the four years since.

[Jim1mack]

I’ve worked hard to get grass growing in small bare areas. They have filled in pretty well. I don’t want to loose those or have any more begin to appear. With this drought and no appreciable rain in the forecast for at least 45 days I’m currently watering four days a week for 25 minutes in the three main areas of the lawn right now. No runoff so it is soaking into the ground. I’m seeing too many brown lawns that are watering according to the villages suggestion number of days and length of watering time. Every lawn is different and every home owner has different desires how they would like their lawn to look. Should be green. Not brown.

[Scotts8826]

Thanks for the snowbird recommendations.

[Will.S]

I check & adjust often as needed.

if you are watering in the dark at 3 a.m. how would you know if any of your sprinklers have exploded?......if it is light out, at least either you could tell, or a neighbor could tell you.....its a huge amount of water coming out of an exploded sprinkler head...

[Altavia]

South of 44 it's wise to install an irrigation filter to minimize clogging of the sprinkler heads.

I'm flushing my filter weekly due to collecting large amounts of sediment and algae with the low retention pond levels.

My irrigation guy said he is replacing far more heads than normal and thinks they may have reduced/stopped filtering and treating irrigation water as a cost savings (unconfirmed...)


Previous thread on irrigation filters.

https://www.talkofthevillages.com/forums/villages-florida-general-discussion-73/time-consider-installing-irrigation-filter-356795/?highlight=Filter+irrigation

[Annie66]

I attended a n irrigation seminar a few years back. I was told that when the ambient temperature gets above 75 degrees F, rotors should be set to water 40 minutes twice a week, and pop-ups 25 minutes twice a week. As others have commented, you should start your irrigation cycle between 3 AM and 4 AM depending on how many zones you have. Starting your irrigation cycle outside that window promotes either excessive evaporation or unwanted fungal growth.

[Bonanza]

Annie66 is correct. How long, how many days, etc., is determined by a few things.
In addition to the type of sprinkler heads your property has -- that is the most important thing in determining how long each zone should run.
Plants and shrubs in stones need much more water than when mulched because the stones bake in the sun.
In the heat of the summer, nothing ever died that was watered properly every other day.

[Rwirish]

Lots of dated info here. Your lawn will tell you when it needs water. Generally 15-20 minutes 3 times a week is not sufficient. Not water turning the day is old school. Golf courses often apply some water during the day to cool the grass down and provide some moisture. Higher evaporation yes but some water during the day when your grass tells you it needs it can be beneficial.

[MorTech]

A WiFi irrigation controller would be wise for snowbirds...Make sure your controller has a built-in default watering schedule in case of WiFi outage.

[djbabler]

I am at the end of a cul de sac up north end of The Villages with a large lawn 7000 square ft irregular shape. Water pressure is low in early morning hours and total watering time for all zones is 210 min. I am thinking about watering starting at 8 am but don't like watering in the daytime. There are times pressure is so low sprinklers will not pop up. Water dept says tough luck. Currently at 7:00 am 35 psi no sprinklers running. I need 40 to 50 psi for good coverage. Ideas?

[Will.S]

That is not an answer to this question.
Why not just get a smart sprinkler controller and forget about it. If you don’t, you will be 1 of the thousands of homes watering your lawns while we are getting a downpour. Then, if you want the deluxe setup, I got my own PWS that my SMART sprinkler controller runs off of. I know exactly how much rain I have received, what the prediction of rail is and how much rain we are supposed to get, then the smarts of the controller will operate off all of those stats and run each zone for the appropriate number of days for a specific amount of time per zone.
With these smart devices, you can turn on restrictions so if it needs watering, you only water on these days, or you have no restrictions on which days to water on and it will run when it needs too. I click on the calendar for the coming month and I can see exactly when it’s going to water, and for how long of time per zone. It updates this calendar everyday because the weather is unpredictable. I’ve used these in my last 3 houses and have converted a dozen friends over to them

[Ptmcbriz]

From Deans.

We follow this. St Augustine requires a lot of water. Otherwise the blades start folding and within a week can die.

[darkim]

FYI … some homes have low pressure sprinklers. They require twice the amount of run time

[Rodneysblue]

I need some advice on watering my lawn of St Augustine grass.
Im setting my zone timer starting at 3am and set to 3 times per week. Is this enough
Is 15 minutes each zone enough water ?

Thanks. Will

Watering restrictions
The St. Johns River Water Management District’s watering restrictions are designed to ensure the efficient use of water for landscape irrigation. The restrictions allow enough water to maintain healthy landscapes year-round. The mandatory restrictions specify the time when watering may occur, the amount of water that may be applied, and the days when watering may occur for residential and nonresidential locations. These days depend on whether the address ends in an odd or even number, and on the time of year.
Time of year Homes with odd numbered
or no addresses Homes with even numbered addresses Nonresidential
properties
Daylight saving time Wednesday/Saturday Thursday/Sunday Tuesday/Friday
Eastern Standard Time Saturday Sunday Tuesday
Daylight saving time: Second Sunday in March until the first Sunday in November
Eastern Standard Time: First Sunday in November until the second Sunday in March
An odd numbered address is one that ends in 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9.
An even numbered address is one that ends in 0, 2, 4, 6 or 8.
Water only when needed and not between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Water for no more than one hour per zone.
Restrictions apply to private wells and pumps, ground or surface water and water from public and private utilities.
Some exceptions apply.
Map of the St. Johns River Water Management District
Water restrictions map

[Pondboy]

I am at the end of a cul de sac up north end of The Villages with a large lawn 7000 square ft irregular shape. Water pressure is low in early morning hours and total watering time for all zones is 210 min. I am thinking about watering starting at 8 am but don't like watering in the daytime. There are times pressure is so low sprinklers will not pop up. Water dept says tough luck. Currently at 7:00 am 35 psi no sprinklers running. I need 40 to 50 psi for good coverage. Ideas?

Is there a time when water pressure is good… i.e 3 AM?

If no and Water Dept says they can’t help, then reducing the lawn size is probably your best/only option.

In that former lawn area, you could do “natural areas” that contain drought tolerant plants / grasses that are watered by a drip irrigation system. Drip irrigation would use far less water than a lawn system. The removal of a few heads or a zone will definitely help the system overall.

[Sabella]

There is no all-around perfect answer here to watering your grass and gardens. For now, we have been in a drought, just meaning mostly no rain, and besides that, our super low humidity and dry winds above 10t sucks all the moisture from what you are only providing with the generalized 2 or 3 days a week water that is normal for this time a year normally. Look around at all the yards that are wind-burned and dry today. Look at a weather app and water when the winds are low, and yes, water every day at that time. Divide your recommended watering times for the two or three days by seven and water every day at the right time. There is no set-it-and-forget-it setting for your irrigation timer; it is up to you, as the owner, to pay attention to our weather patterns. What is an extra $25 dollars a month to keep everything hydrated?.
Thank you for mentioning the most important fact which means how much rain we are getting which would dictate how often you should be watering your lawn. I also find it amazing that most people don’t even bother to ever go out and put their irrigation system on to see if it’s working or if you have Certain ones that are broken or just to monitor that the system is working properly.

[MorTech]

The most important factor is hot dry windy air this time of year. Watering a little bit at dusk does wonders.

[lkagele]

I need some advice on watering my lawn of St Augustine grass.
Im setting my zone timer starting at 3am and set to 3 times per week. Is this enough
Is 15 minutes each zone enough water ?

Thanks. Will

15 Minutes might not be enough. Your lawn will tell you if it's not.

I used to water every three days but still had problems with it drying out. I cut the time by 1/3 and started watering every day. Lawn has never looked better. I actually save on water. If you're watering every three days, you're not going to shut your system off after a light rain. Watering every day, however, you can cut a day out after a light rain.

[patlerro]

I need some advice on watering my lawn of St Augustine grass.
Im setting my zone timer starting at 3am and set to 3 times per week. Is this enough
Is 15 minutes each zone enough water ?

Thanks. Will
Need to water about at least 30 minutes per cycle during this dry season

[Ozzello]

WOW.
No mention as to the type of soil or the type of sprinklers. From sand to heavy clay is out there, and require WAY different irrigation.

You likely have 2 types of sprinklers, both requiring different times (sometimes by quite a lot).

What you need to do right now during a drought and during normal rainfall is also very different.

Flat lawns and slopes are different.

I suggest Fertigator. They do a great job on fertilizer and pests and a great job tuning your irrigation as part of the service.