At this point in the summer, I am trying not to go broke from watering my lawn and landscape. What can I do to minimize my water usage? BF

Water usage is not usually one of the first things we think about when planning out our landscaping or selecting our plants, but next to the plants, water will likely be our second largest lawn expenditure during the year. So, let’s talk about some ways to conserve water in these brutally hot days of summer.

First of all, know your water needs. As far as turf goes, it’s pretty simple. During the summer bermuda turf needs about an inch of water per week and fescue needs about two inches. If you are watering your lawn with a sprinkler system, odds are that you are overwatering. Why? Because it’s hard to guess how much water your sprinkler system is applying to your yard. To know for sure, you will need to do something we call an “irrigation audit.”

Irrigation audit is a fancy term for figuring out how much water your sprinkler system is putting on your yard. To accomplish an irrigation audit, you are going to need something to measure the water being delivered to your lawn by your sprinkler. There are official water irrigation measurement cups for this task, but you can also use something like a tuna fish or cat food can. You will need several so just be sure all your water capture containers are the same so that your results are consistent.

Once you have the water capture containers, scatter them out in a single watering zone, turn on your sprinkler system in that zone for about 20 minutes and wait. Once the 20-minute cycle has finished, gather up your containers and measure the water in each of them. Hopefully they will all contain about the same amount of water.

Now we need to do some math. Let’s say that after 20 minutes your containers averaged about half an inch of water. So, if you have a bermuda lawn that needs about an inch of water per week, you know you’ll have to water about 40 minutes in that zone to meet its needs. If you have a fescue law, you’ll need to water double that or about an hour and 20 minutes per week in that zone. At this point you can either assume all the zones are delivering water at about the same rate or repeat the same process for all your sprinkler zones. The second option will be the most accurate.

Now that you know how long your sprinkler needs to run, it will be time to program the sprinkler controller. Best practices in watering tell us that it’s better to water less often and more deeply. Here’s why.

Watering deeply encourages plant roots to grow down to reach the water. By doing this, your plants will become more resilient during the summer because they will have a more robust root system that is able to reach water that is deeper in the soil. When we water more frequently, we are encouraging the plant’s roots to stay closer to the surface where they will be more susceptible to variations in water levels. And plants with roots near the surface will need to be watered more often.

One more take away here is that if you want to conserve water in your lawn, plant a turf grass that requires less water like bermuda or buffalo grass. Fescue is a cool season grass that will do ok in the summer if (and this is a big if), if you are willing to provide it with the water it needs to survive.

An additional strategy to help conserve water is to not just set your sprinkler and then never think about it again. We’ve all seen it when we’re driving down the street in the pouring down rain and there’s someone’s sprinkler system adding un-needed water to the mix. Most sprinkler systems have the option of adding a rain sensor that will shut off the sprinkler system when it rains. In addition, there are several sprinkler controllers with technology that checks the weather online to see if you need to water or they give you access from an app on your phone to turn the sprinkler off from work should a surprise rain come our way.

There’s a growing trend in home landscaping that encourages homeowners to shift away from a turf lawn to a more “natural” landscape made of native flowers and grasses. There are several benefits to this strategy. Lower water usage is a side benefit since native plants have learned to adapt to our weather and because of that, they typically have lower water requirements. These plants have been toughened up to survive our Oklahoma summers… kind of like those of us who have lived here all our lives as compared to visitors from a more temperate climate.

For those of us who remember back when we used to get rain… rain barrels are a great way to supplement your garden water needs. The City of Tulsa typically has a rain barrel sale each year or you can find them locally or online. Rain barrels help capture and repurpose the rain that falls on your roof. Once you make the initial investment in equipment, you’ll have a handy water supply nearby for years to come.

For more info on water conservation and low-water plants, check out the Hot Topics section of our website www.tulsamastergardeners.org. See you in the garden.

You can get answers to all your gardening questions by calling the Tulsa Master Gardeners Help Line at 918-746-3701, dropping by our Diagnostic Center at 4116 E. 15th Street, or by emailing us at mg@tulsamastergardeners.org.

Photo: OSU DASNR