Can only water once a week? (San Antonio, Austin: homes, cost, backyard)

[Exiled Texan]

Ugggg, looks like after a long day at work and after I get the kids to bed I'll be hand watering the damn yard. I truly think they are going to be patrolling heavily to give $400 tickets. I have much better things to spend $400 on, but re-sodding the entire yard will cost more.

My grass has been holding on with twice week watering and occasional hand watering.

Everyone start doing the rain dance!

[Latsabb]

Do what my brother has always done. Water at night. Do short bursts, and in the middle of the night, and there is very little risk of being caught. There are also "trickle" irrigation hoses, which are very small, and just leak out water, rather than spray the water. You can lay them in your yard, and be very discrete when watering.

[mimimomx3]

Some of my neighbors are watering twice on their day...once at 12.01 am and then again at 10.00 pm. It's legal, for now.

[verybadgnome]

Of all the things to obsess about in this world lawns are one of the silliest.

My lawn was 100% brown in August, 2000 and it came back the next year without resodding.

[centralaustinite]

yes, I have let my yard go completely brown most summers in Austin and it has always come back. I plan to water the trees and bushes once a week on my watering day and just let the grass go. I will compost it all first and I may water a steep slope by hand so that I don't lose soil in that area (if you think re-sodding is expensive, try a truck load of soil!)

I have a neighbor who waters his lawn (thankfully a very small yard) every single day! I hope he reduces his pace.

The water for our yards comes from the same source as our drinking water, I'd rather have free-flowing water from the tap and a brown yard!!

It is going to take more than a simple rain to end this drought.

http://drought.unl.edu/DM/MONITOR.html

[HappyTexan]

Don't forget to water around the foundation of your homes.

[franklin9150]

Originally Posted by Exiled Texan

Ugggg, looks like after a long day at work and after I get the kids to bed I'll be hand watering the damn yard. I truly think they are going to be patrolling heavily to give $400 tickets. I have much better things to spend $400 on, but re-sodding the entire yard will cost more.

My grass has been holding on with twice week watering and occasional hand watering.

Everyone start doing the rain dance!

We are in the same boat down here in San Antonio. We've been under water restrictions for most of the summer. I feel your pain.

What kind of grass do you have? I have bermuda grass. I have been watering once a week for the last few months, and believe it or not, the front is still green (little afternoon sun), and the back is mostly green, with some brown spots. Actually, the back yard went 3 weeks without water at all, and is still doing ok. You may be suprised on how resilient grass can be, depending on the type.

[calel]

My front yard has brown spots wherever the sun hits it full on. Can't be helped, even when watering it twice a week. The grass will come back. My neighbors and I are on a mowing strike. The grass is barely growing and it just seems like mowing it now will just hurt it more.

I haven't watered the backyard at all and it's still relatively green. Shade trees help immensely.

[eepstein]

I would say if you have an automatic sprinkler system, start watering during the wee hours of the night, like 2 or 3am. I suspect the extra "staff" will be looking for violaters during the daytime (since that is the worst time to water your lawn), and not at night. But I could be wrong.

Originally Posted by Exiled Texan

Ugggg, looks like after a long day at work and after I get the kids to bed I'll be hand watering the damn yard. I truly think they are going to be patrolling heavily to give $400 tickets. I have much better things to spend $400 on, but re-sodding the entire yard will cost more.

My grass has been holding on with twice week watering and occasional hand watering.

Everyone start doing the rain dance!

[BobosCurse]

Here in the midwest, I'm so sick of yardwork.
Good riddance.