As we move deeper into the spring season, it’s crucial to monitor the weather, especially rainfall amounts, to ensure your lawn and landscape receive the right amount of water. Over the past six weeks, St. Louis has experienced higher-than-normal rainfall, which significantly impacts your lawn care and irrigation needs. Proper lawn maintenance is essential to avoid damage and ensure a lush, healthy lawn.
Recommendations for Optimal Lawn Mowing Services
- Adjust Irrigation Practices: Given the recent rainfall amounts, we recommend turning off your irrigation system for now. Only turn it on as needed until the rainfall reduces and we approach summer weather conditions. This will help prevent overwatering and ensure your lawn remains healthy and vibrant throughout the remainder of spring.
- Avoid Manual Watering Before Mowing: To avoid damaging your lawn during mowing, please refrain from manually watering your lawn 48 hours prior to your scheduled mowing date. If you are uncertain of your mowing date, please contact us, and we will be happy to provide you with this information.
- Perform the Tuna Can Test: To measure how much water your irrigation system produces, you can use the Tuna Can Test. Place several empty tuna cans around your lawn and run your sprinkler system for 15 minutes. Measure the water depth in each can using a ruler, and calculate the average. This helps ensure your system provides the correct amount of water each week.
Ideal Watering for Your Lawn
For optimal health, your lawn typically needs between 1 and 1.5 inches of water per week. During the summer months, this may increase to 1.5 to 2 inches per week. This amount can vary slightly, but it serves as a good general rule. When natural rainfall meets or exceeds this amount, your irrigation system should be adjusted accordingly to avoid overwatering.
- Frequency: Ideally, your lawn should be watered twice a week. During the hotter summer months, you might need to increase this to three times a week if additional watering is required.
- Deep and Infrequent: Watering deeply and infrequently is the best practice. This means applying enough water to soak the soil to a depth of 6-8 inches, which helps to build drought tolerance by encouraging deeper root growth.
Consequences of Overwatering Your Lawn
When your lawn receives too much water, it can lead to several issues:
- Shallow Root Growth: Overwatering encourages shallow roots, making your lawn less resilient during dry periods.
- Disease: Excess moisture creates a perfect environment for fungal diseases.
- Nutrient Leaching: Watering too much can wash away essential nutrients from the soil, leading to poor grass health.
Negative Impact on Lawn Mowing
Excessive water not only harms your lawn’s health but also impacts our ability to maintain your lawn effectively. When the soil is overly saturated, our mowing equipment can cause additional damage to your lawn:
- Soil Compaction: Heavy equipment on wet soil can lead to compaction, which reduces aeration and water infiltration, negatively affecting grass roots.
- Ruts and Tearing: Mowing wet grass can result in ruts and torn patches, leading to an uneven and damaged lawn surface.
- Increased Clippings: Wet grass clippings can clump together, leaving behind unsightly patches that can smother the grass underneath.
Despite our level of attention and doing everything in our power to avoid any damage to the lawn, at a certain point, this is out of our control, and damages will occur no matter what. The risk of unavoidable damages has begun to steadily increase weekly since late April 2024. Our team always strives to maintain the highest standards, but excessively wet conditions make it difficult to avoid some level of damage during mowing.
Importance of Proper Lawn Care
Proper lawn care, including adjusting your watering practices, is essential for maintaining a healthy and vibrant lawn. Overwatering can lead to numerous problems that compromise the health of your grass and make lawn maintenance challenging. By following our recommendations, you can help ensure your lawn thrives even in periods of heavy rainfall.