Water lawn? on the Peoria.com Forums

Do you water your lawn or just let it turn brown? Mine is past brown and is almost white now.

I was brought up to never water your lawn in a drought!

I'm not watering my lawn, but I am watering my flowers.

My lawn is staying somewhat green because my yard is really shady. Because of the shade, I grow a drought tolerant fescue mix that doesn't get mowed very often. Only the edges in full sun along the street and along the south side are brown. The rest is still fairly green... crusty and dry but still green.

I use a soaker hose buried in my mulch to water my hydrangeas. Less water lost to evaporation that way.

WATER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!! Cheaper to pay a higher water bill than to try and get the lawn to recover or worse, have to completely replace it!!!

Actually watering the lawn and forcing it to stay green when its hot and dry is more stressful for the plants, than just letting them go dormant. The brown grass is not dying, its just dormant. When the weather cools and moisture returns, it will green up when its ready.

JNJ, I think you are trying to establish a new lawn, which in that case, you do need to keep watering it. Going dormant is more applicable for a mature lawn...

its grass itll grow back . theres a song about that .

I recently read (I can't remember where think it was in the PJStar), That even if you choose to let your lawn go dormant during a drought, you should give it a little water every week to keep it from dying for good.

@skutfarcus:

Yeah, I think I read or heard that somewhere, also. The last time we had a drought, I let the front yard "go dormant" and the next spring I had a nice front yard of dirt. The backyard I don't worry about too much as there is almost too much shade. Took me several years to get it looking good again. Some water now is cheaper than the constant watering it took to get all that grass seed going.

I'm watering mine.

@joepyeweed:

Quick tell all the farmers who are watering their corn to stop it stresses the plants. Yes corn is a grass.

watering garden and deck plants..(2 potted plants have officially croaked).. and we have one rectangle (sewer field I think) where the grass is really dry/crunchy and that's where the sprinkler goes for the kids..( 2 birds..one stone)

the kids play in the sewer field? I'm calling my mom to thank her for NOT making me play in the sewer field when I was a kid. Another thing I wasn't aware I needed to thank her for!

@meanjarhead:
Yes, but we aren't harvesting the fruit from our grass to make a living either. And corn is a warm season grass which has different needs than cool season grasses like kentucky blue grass or fescues.

Most of us are growing a kentucky blue grass or fescue lawn that are cool season turf grasses.
Corn is a warm season grass - it is more like burmuda, buffalo, zoysia which is probably looking very green right now. The corn looks great, its tall and green, it just won't produce seed/fruit without more moisture. Look around, lawns with zoysia or burmuda grass are probably loving this heat...

Its fine to let cool season turf go dormant when its hot. But then in the fall, it should green up again. If a dormant cool season lawn doesn't green up in the fall - when temperatures start dropping, then its needs to be fed and watered. The trick is to feed and water cool season grasses in the spring and fall when they are actively growing...

Warm season grasses like Burmuda, zoysia, st augustine, (and corn) do need to be fed and watered in the summer.

@joepyeweed:

Quick go to the golf courses and fire the grounds keepers they are stressing the grass!!!!! ya i wont there.

Most golf courses only water the greens and tees, which are typically bent grass, or some other warm season grass, that prefers to be mowed very short.

I have some zoysia in my side and back yard. The side yard zoysia is actually showing some stress. The backyard zoysia that sees some afternoon shade looks like a jungle. However, either is far less stressed than most other areas of my yard. Wish my whole yard was this stuff. The neighbors might hate that it looks dead 6 months out of the year....