The All Seeing All Knowing Lawn Care Manual
Turf Tip #1 Check Your Sprinklers
Good watering practices begin from the ground up, so let’s start with the sprinklers. First, check your sprinkler system. This will tell you if you’re getting even water distribution. Dry, brown spots and wet, swampy areas in your lawn are the most obvious signs that there’s a problem with your sprinklers. Another sign is water constantly draining from the sprinkler system and running into the gutter. This could indicate a broken line, a plugged valve or stuck automatic drain valve. Even a well-designed sprinkler system needs regular checkups and necessary corrections
Turf Tip #2 Get to Know Your Grass
Kentucky Bluegrass forms a dense, tightly-knit turf that withstands wear and has the ability to mend when damaged. The grass blades are narrow and dark green. Tall Fescue is a grass with wide, coarse blades. The Turf~type Improved Tall Fescue is more desirable because it grows lower, denser, is deep rooted and has finer grass blades. Perennial Rye is a grass with a medium to fine texture. It is fast germinating and because of tough veins in the leaf blades, it often has a ragged appearance when mowed. It is often used in a seed mix.
Turf Tip #3 Take the ET Test
You are now ready to take the ET test. This will determine how long and how often to water your lawn. First, you will need these items:
- 10 or more straight-sided cups or cans (We recommend coffee cups or soup cans, at least 4″ to 6″ deep, all with the same diameter)
- A pencil
- A ruler
- A calculator
Now, just follow these simple steps to take the ET test:
- Step One: On a calm day (early morning is best), distribute the cans randomly around your front yard.
- Step Two: Run the sprinklers for 15 minutes. If the water begins to puddle or run off the lawn before the 15 minutes are up, write the number of minutes the sprinkler ran before runoff occurred. If runoff occurs wait for an hour, then turn the sprinklers back on long enough to complete the 15 minutes. Record the length of time the sprinklers ran here: ______ This is the longest you can run this set of sprinklers at a time, as we’ll explain on Page 9.
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