How Often Should I Water My Lawn in Utah?

Lawns in Utah generally need a minimum of one to two inches of water every week.

General Rules for Watering Lawns in Utah

• Longer watering time is required if you are using heads of rotary nozzle style as they shoot over a longer distance compared to pop-up fan spray heads. Rotary nozzle heads also tend to be affected more by water pressure and wind. 
• Changes in water pressure and wind change throughout the day. It can have a serious effect on the water coverage. The lowest water pressure and windiest time often occurs in the morning. 
• Since more people water during hotter months, it means that there is less water pressure. This is why it is best to supplement with hand watering. 
• During mid and spring season, it is important to clean your sprinkler system’s filters that include those with individual heads. 
• Compacted and hard soil doesn’t allow water penetration. Compaction is often not uniformed, with water running off compacted areas and soaking into more porous soil. It will result to dead spots as well as overwatered grass adjacent to one another. 

Watering Your Lawn in Utah Under Weather Conditions of 90 to More than 100 Degrees

• Water your lawn 3 to 4 times a week. 
• Watering time should be set to achieve ½ to ¾ inch of water for each station every day.
• Rotary style systems have an average of 40 to more than 60 minutes for each station and your watering time can vary significantly.
• For spray heads of fan and pop-up style, the average time of watering is 25 to 35 minutes for every station with varying watering time. 

During such weather conditions, there might be a need for you to hand water certain areas since your automated sprinkler system won’t be able to uniformly cover every area under this heat. Increasing your watering time will only make you drastically overwater certain areas and you might still end up dealing with several dry dead spots.

Watering Your Lawn in Utah Under Weather Conditions of 70 to 80 Degrees

• Water your lawn twice or thrice a week. 
• The watering time should be set to reach half an inch of water per day per station. 
• The average time for pop-up fan style spray heads is 15 to 25 minutes for each station.
• For head systems of rotary style, the rotating kind that shoots far, the average is 30 to 40 minutes for each station. 

Signs of Dry Lawn in Utah

1. The grass starts having a gray or bluish color to it. It is one of the primary signs of issues with watering. 
2. Your footprints stay visible in the grass after walking across. When the grass is dry, it will stay flat and won’t bounce back up right away. 
3. The soil should be moist or wet all the time. It could never be too dusty or dry not even for a single day. If you cannot form the soil to a moist ball, it means that the soil is too dry.
4. The grass blades fold along their center vein and appear needlelike and thin. Properly watered grass will be flat and wide.