FLORIDA—When establishing a new lawn or renovating areas within an older lawn, it is recommended to water with two to three “mists” throughout the day for the first seven to 10 days until roots are established.
These are 10-minute bursts. Then back off to once a day for about a half hour for seven to 10 days. Finally, water two to three times a week for about seven days. By then, your lawn should be established.
Irrigation is not needed when we are getting adequate rainfall. Rain counts. In the absence of sufficient rain, you’ll need to provide enough water at the correct time to allow your new sod to root, hence the above directions.
A well-designed and correctly installed irrigation system with a correctly operated controller helps to achieve uniform establishment. It can be difficult or impossible to uniformly provide sufficient water to establish a lawn with hose-end sprinklers, especially with a sizeable lawn and during dry weather.
Most people will not do the necessary job of pulling hoses around regularly to result in a well-established lawn.
Too much water will result in rot, diseased roots, and failure. Too little water will result in the sod, seedlings, sprigs, or plugs drying excessively and failing to establish.
The result will be a poorly established, sparse lawn with weeds or complete failure.
There is no substitute or remedy for incorrect irrigation when establishing a new lawn or renovating an older one.
Investing the required time and money is risky if the new lawn cannot be irrigated correctly. Taking the gamble that adequate (not too much, not too little) rainfall will occur when needed to result in a beautiful, healthy, lush lawn is exactly that: a gamble.
An irrigation system is a good tool for supplementing rainfall. Learn to operate the irrigation controller using the “Manual” setting as much as possible. It is wise—and also state law—to have a rain shutoff device installed and operating correctly.
The rain shutoff device overrides the controller when it rains or when sufficient rainfall occurs. A rain shutoff device is inexpensive and easily installed. Also, a rain gauge can be an inexpensive tool to help monitor how much rain you’ve received. Rain counts.
The above schedule should help when planting a lawn from seed, sprigs, plugs, or sod.
Once the lawn is rooted, your goal changes to watering to grow a deep, strong root system. To do this, irrigate to provide half to three-quarters of an inch of water as needed.
Here are links to a UF/IFAS video and publication with more information on how to do this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_wn-hwLNtg, https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/LH025.
Larry Williams is the Extension Horticulture Agent with the Okaloosa County Cooperative Extension Service, University of Florida. You can contact Larry at 689-5850 or email lwilliams@myokaloosa.com.
