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Smart Watering Tips for Your Lawn

To get a great looking lawn you need water and fertilizer both of which, when combined with nature, can give your lawn everything it needs to be lush and green.

One of the big problems people have in taking care of the lawn is knowing how often and how much to fertilize and water. This largely depends on the area you live in. Here in Northern Virginia, we've had a lot of rainfall this spring and early summer, so in some cases you may not need to water it at all. Of course, if your yard is very wet you do need to make sure there is proper drainage is you don't want water collecting and laying on your lawn.

Drainage can be as simple as a pipe that drains out into the street or a pond and good drainage can be helpful even if you don't get a lot of rain but use sprinklers to water your lawn. If you have a really large yard and a drainage pipe is not practical you might need to dig a shallow ditch where water collects and fill it with small pebbles to make it aesthetically pleasing.

It's great if you could have a lawn sloping away from the house which will stop the water from building up around the foundation causing damage to your basement. It's also good if you can have the water flowing evenly along the yard so if your yard is flat or just slightly sloped towards the street that's best.

If you haven"t gotten a lot of rain, you may need to install an underground sprinkler system or resign yourself to dragging a sprinkler around the yard all summer. You want to run it for about 15 minutes a day in each section of the yard during the hottest days of summer. If it's really hot you might have to run it in the morning and the evening.

Having an underground sprinkler system is best because you can set it to go off at certain times of the day and for a specified length of time. This is really good if you are an area that has a water ban as you can set it for the odd, or even days and forget about it.

It's best to water your lawn in the morning before the sun starts hitting it too much. If you water in the evening it won't have as much chance to evaporate and that can contribute to harboring insects. You shouldn't water in the middle of the day, however, as this can interrupt the grasses from opening and it can also burn your grass leaves as the droplets of water can act as a magnifier for the sunlight.

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