Stage 3 water restrictions coming Monday? (Home Depot, closing, plumbing)

[Penquin927]

If you put down new sod you have to contact your water company to get a variance that you have to display in your front window. I personally would not want to waste my money on installing new sod at this point though because the variance is only good for about 30 days or so and then after that well you know it will be brown. Definitely scared to see what my lawn is going to look like in Stage 3. I have had my sprinkler setup for Stage 2 for years now and that seems to be plenty of water for my yard in normal conditions but I don't know know. I just hope that once we do get rain that the grass and comes back with no issues.

[The Black Irish]

Well, whatever you are doing to allow you to cut your grass alot without watering let us all know. Mine is on life support right now

[GEM-Texas]

I would like to know why various weeds seem to grow just fine. They have evolved to sneer at grass.

My peeve is sprinkler systems. So if you have a sprinkler you can set it to water in the middle of the night. But us poor folk without such, would have to get up at 3:00 AM to take full advantage of the water period.

WHEN RESTRICTIONS HIT, MAKE EVERYONE DRAG HOSES AROUND.

NO BEING IN BED AND RAPING THE AQUIFER WITHOUT INCONVENIENCE!

Rant off.

BTW, in my neighborhood, the late night sprinkler system cheaters have such green lawns. Hmm. If you do manage to come out late, you see them happily watering.

[Bo]

Originally Posted by GEM-Texas

My peeve is sprinkler systems. So if you have a sprinkler you can set it to water in the middle of the night. But us poor folk without such, would have to get up at 3:00 AM to take full advantage of the water period.

WHEN RESTRICTIONS HIT, MAKE EVERYONE DRAG HOSES AROUND.

NO BEING IN BED AND RAPING THE AQUIFER WITHOUT INCONVENIENCE!

Rant off.

There are two windows of time we can water... 3-8am and 8-10pm. Manual watering would likely be more convenient during the PM window.

[GEM-Texas]

I know but the 2 hour window doesn't let me really get at our big yard with a good soak, given nooks and crannies.

But Mr. GreenGrass just soaks away. I reserve the right to be cranky about this.

[Chaka]

Be proud of your contribution to saving the Aquifer.

I usually set up my hoses the night before, then turn them on around 6 or 7 am. It gets enough in that time frame. My zoysia and shadow turf in the shade does fine, and will do ok with 2 weeks in between watering. The zoysia in the sun (just small patches) will probably be fine too, but could probably use some hand watering. I'm going to take out the bermuda anyway (to put in an edible landscape), so am letting that go and will cover with plastic soon. Good summer for that.

Don't lay sod now, even if you can be exempt from restrictions. Wait until fall or spring, and wait until rain is expected. Also consider where you're putting sod and why. Is it an area your kids will be running/playing? Will it get regular use? If not, consider alternatives that use much less water. Note, xeriscape doesn't mean a bunch of harsh prickly cactus. There are many wonderful options. My plumbago and firebush get water maybe once per month now (a/c water collected into a barrel), my Mexican birds of paradise get none, all have spectacular flowers right now.

[DCNative24]

Originally Posted by Chaka

My plumbago and firebush get water maybe once per month now (a/c water collected into a barrel), my Mexican birds of paradise get none, all have spectacular flowers right now.

Directing a/c water into a barrel is a great idea! I've never thought about that but would love to do it. Ours is just going into the ground right now where nothing is planted and clearly could be put to better use (and directed away from our foundation!!). Is this something you did yourself or did you have someone help you? Do you mind sharing the info on how you did this?

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by DCNative24

Directing a/c water into a barrel is a great idea! I've never thought about that but would love to do it. Ours is just going into the ground right now where nothing is planted and clearly could be put to better use (and directed away from our foundation!!). Is this something you did yourself or did you have someone help you? Do you mind sharing the info on how you did this?

I know someone who sets this up much fancier than we did, for about $500. For us, it was kind of by default. The cheap installation we had for our HVAC system meant they just had a pipe running out underneath the house (pier and beam, so raised about 3ft off the ground). We realized it dripping and put a bucket under it....eventually we were dumping the 5 gal bucket 3+ times per day in summer, even when we ran our a/c infrequently (usually set at 80F if we're home, 85F if we're not).

We still haven't made it nicer, so it's kind of ugly, but we have a combo: hose attached which makes it run into the grass and I move it to different areas. Right now it's in some sod we put down a few months ago (a friend did some in Spring and had some extra, so I took about 10 squares to fill in). Every few days I remove the hose and let it drip into the bucket. We have rain barrels at our gutter spouts, so if I don't have anything I need to water that day, I dump the bucket into the barrel. I use it for my blueberry bushes which like slightly acidic soil, but I'm hesitant to use it for my other vegetables as not sure they'd do ok with the acid content.

I think on most houses the drainage pipe is in the ground going into a sewer line eventually, so may require some digging. Lucky for us we were cheap on the installation and they left it out. It doesn't look like much coming out, but we easily get 15+ gallons per day, even in dry weather. More when it's really humid.

[The Black Irish]

NICE! My Esperanzas are looking good, lantana doing okay, grass not so much. This the coolest thing I have ever heard.

[DCNative24]

Chaka - awesome! Thanks so much for sharing. Ours was definitely done on the cheap and the piping doesn't go into anything but the ground (and not very far down). I discovered this when I knocked the whole pipe over while mowing the lawn last summer... Nice!

We will definitely try to implement this!