Published: August 06, 2008 12:10 am      

Watering the grass

Do it yourself or just let it rain?

When it comes to maintaining a healthy lawn, is rainfall enough or is additional watering necessary?

“If mother nature doesn’t give you one good rain a week, you need to give it a boost with ... watering,” Duke Durbin, owner of Mon River Garden Center, said. “An inch a week is what most plants require to stay looking green and healthy.”

He said both lawns and plants need this amount of water. Having the lawn properly hydrated is the key to keeping it healthy during the dry summer months.

Mon River Garden Center’s most popular grass seed is Kentucky 31 because it’s the easiest to grow, Durbin said. The Fairmont business also carries Kentucky bluegrass, fescue and some ryegrass.

As long as persons water their lawns conservatively and only when needed, it shouldn’t hurt their water bills much, he said.

Durbin recommended staying away from fertilizer in August, but to do this type of work in the spring or later in the fall.

“If you fertilize right now — your plants or your lawn — you’re asking for what they call fertilizer burn,” Durbin said.

He said July and August is a good time to use some kind of insecticide to keep bugs from eating plants. Many products — including organic — are available.

Mitch Mason, owner of Hauge’s Flower Store in Fairmont, said the kind of turf is a big factor in whether watering is necessary.

Bluegrass is common because it’s cheaper to produce, he said. “The bluegrass is a great cool-season grass,” but it doesn’t do as well during droughts. During dry summers — like last year — the bluegrass burns up if it isn’t watered, Mason said.

He said watering the lawn can affect a person’s water bill, but people can use cultural measures and drought-resistant turf to cut the costs.

“If you’ve got a nice blended lawn, you probably don’t need to water,” Mason said. “We’ve had pretty generous rainfall this summer. Chances are good this year if you have a blended yard you’re not going to have an issue with watering.”

Hauge’s Flower Store sells a blend that is much more resistant to drought. It includes two types of bluegrass, two kinds of ryegrass, and also two varieties of fescue.

“The blends, they’re more expensive, but they hold up a lot better ... period,” Mason said.

Mason said persons should do most of their augmentation and fertilization in the fall, which means it’s important to test the soil now “if you’re going to be yard proud.” A soil test will determine how much lime, potassium, nitrogen or other substance to add. Soil test kits are available at the Marion County Extension Office.

“Fall is the best time to fertilize,” he said, “so you can build up your turf going into winter. Healthy roots make a healthy top. Healthy roots mean you’re going to out-compete weeds.”

As the largest single crop in the United States, turfgrass is a big part of agriculture, Mason said.

“The most important thing is think in advance,” he said. “Agriculture is an optimistic business because you’re always looking ahead. Do what you need to do now to make your life easier and more productive for next year.”

Mountaineer Lawn Care in Morgantown has been open for nearly 30 years. It’s one of the biggest lawn care companies in the area, manager Tyler Reel said.

Mountaineer Lawn Care offers chemical applications to control weeds, crab grass, grubs and insects. The company also does aeration, soil samples, a lime application, and other services.

Reel said this spring was excellent with a lot of rain and blooming. But when a lawn goes almost a week or two without rain, it starts to experience stress.

“Different types of grass react different to stress with no water,” he said. “What you see is your turf gets so used to having adequate rainfall, and when that rainfall stops it stresses that lawn out.”

If a person takes a few steps on the lawn and turns around and the grass is slowly standing back up, then he or she knows more water is probably needed, Reel said. People can place a cat food or tuna can on the grass with a sprinkler, and the lawn has had enough water when the can fills up.

“Anytime that you go almost three or four days without rain, it doesn’t hurt to water the lawn at all,” he said.

Reel recommended watering the grass in the morning. It isn’t bad to water the lawn in the middle of the day, but the rate of evaporation is higher in the heat and the watering really only cools the grass off.

“You don’t want to water at night,” he said. “What that does is create fungus problems when it gets humid.”

Depending on where someone lives, watering the lawn can impact the water bill pretty significantly, Reel said. However, this year isn’t as bad as the past three years, which saw a lot of drought. Persons who have irrigation systems can probably cut their watering back a good amount.

“Mowing is probably one of the biggest cultural practices that you can do,” he said. “It’s a hard thing to get people mowing their grass correctly.”

The first few times individuals mow in the spring, they should cut the grass to 2 inches to allow more growth, Reel said. Then they should raise the length to 2 and a half inches, and in the summer go to 3 inches tall. He said cutting the lawn to the ground stresses it out more and causes it to dry out faster.

“All you really want to do is cut about an inch off a week,” Reel said. “You want to get it cut once a week almost on a timely basis.”

Keeping the grass higher shades the soil and keeps it from drying out. Also, it means the grass doesn’t have to be watered as long, he said.

Reel also suggested changing the direction of mowing each time, which trains the grass instead of letting it grow just one way. Homeowners should also sharpen the blades on their lawnmowers at least twice a year. For people who mow grass a lot, they should sharpen the blades more.

The Grounds Keeper in Clarksburg is “an organic approach to lawn care.”

“Instead of trying to treat the symptoms of a bad lawn, our approach is to try to fix the problem,” owner Michael Book said. “With anything that you grow, it has a preference to a soil type or nutritional requirements. There may be slight variations.”

Installing irrigation systems is part of the Grounds Keeper’s services. One client had nearly 5 acres of irrigated lawn, and his water bill was almost $1,000 a month during dry summers, Book said. However, an average lawn in the area is around 8,000 square feet, and homeowners should aim for one inch of water for every 1,000 square feet.

This summer hasn’t been dry by any means, he said. But if people want their lawns to look “more pristine,” they need to water.

Book said grass has a self-protection mechanism. If the root system feels that it’s not able to pump enough water out of the soil to keep the lawn alive, it will cause the grass to go dormant.

“The dormant grass is not dead — it’s just brown,” Book said. “As soon as we get cooler temperatures and more water, the grass will instantly up again.”

By cutting the grass at a higher height and checking the pH, a homeowner can completely turn his or her lawn around in a summer, he said.

E-mail Jessica Legge at jlegge@timeswv.com.