Is there a best time of day to water the lawn? (2025 Update)

Just before daylight, so that it has time to dry out before night time, and develop fungus, etc.

--James--

Ending just before dawn.

Why? If you water during the day, more water is lost to evaporation before it even hits the grass. If you water after sunset, some moisture remains on the blades for too long, and you could encourage fungal problems.

That leaves just before dawn. Less water evaporates as part of the sprinkling process, and water that makes it to the blades, but doesn't make it to the soil can evaporate quickly, and not provide a place for fungus to multiply.

My nextdoor neighbor, with the lushest lawn in town, waters from

"Ending just before dawn.

Why? If you water during the day, more water is lost to evaporation before it even hits the grass. If you water after sunset, some moisture remains on the blades for too long, and you could encourage fungal problems.

That leaves just before dawn. Less water evaporates as part of the sprinkling process, and water that makes it to the blades, but doesn't make it to the soil can evaporate quickly, and not provide a place for fungus to multiply. '"

I agree. Lots of people say not to water at night, as wet grass promtoes disease and fungus. However, I think this is mostly nonsense. AFter all, it rains at night doesn't it? I think you could safely water at night, as long as it's like every 4-7 days and giving it about an inch. I think the night watering problems come from people who are watering it every night, and with only enough water to get it wet. That is wrong, wheneve you do it.

I do mine exactly as Warren suggest, having it end around dawn or shortly after. That minimizes evaporation and the time the lawn is wet.

What's his address. Uh, I just want to go by and look.

Hah. Thanks. I'm a musician so waking up that early (sometimes before I've even gone to bed!) is not an option.

I had thought that maybe watering at night was good because there is less evaporation but hadn't considered the fungus.

Thanks to all.

James wrote:

So get a timer.

All my hoses, sprinklers, nozzles, etc. have quick disconnects on them. I'll go out around dinner time, and set the sprinkler to hit the right areas, and then pop the hose off the sprinkler, sip a timer in between the hose and the sprinkler. At 5am, while I'm involved in deep REM sleep, my lawn gets watered. When I get up at 9am, and go out to get the paper, I can see the last signs of wetness, and a finger into the soil confirms that it had been watered while I slept.

I also use the timer on the soaker hoses I have buried in my various beds, and I have a meter that turns off based on volume on the hose hidden in the bushes that tops off my water feature. The net result is it doesn't matter if I forget I'm watering something. The water is automatically turned off at the right time. And being able to set the start time, I can water things at the best time of day even though it coincides with when I'm fast asleep.

Rarely have I gotten so much satisfaction for so little money buying something that seemed to be a luxury at the time.

That's why they invented timers!

joe

Put the pic on post cards and send it to Martha House Arrest.

One add on to this thread..-anytime- is better than no time. (soak it)

NJ is not the center of the universe.....in much of the western US we get less than 6"/yr. Not a lot of night rain! We have night time temperatures perfect for fungal disease growth.....fact is in much of the irrigated world pre dawn watering is the smartest approach.

You mis-spelt irrigation system. :)

"NJ is not the center of the universe.....in much of the western US we get less than 6"/yr. Not a lot of night rain! We have night time temperatures perfect for fungal disease growth.....fact is in much of the irrigated world pre dawn watering is the smartest approach. "

And isn't that what I said I do? if you're going to get it watered pre-dawn, then for a reasonable size lawn, you'll have to start at 1 or

Okay, let's think about this. You're putting down an inch of water once a week. That means even if you can only run one sprinkler or zone at a time, you can have seven different zones.

Just how big of a lawn do you consider "reasonable"???

If you're starting at 1 or 2 AM, you should be able to get 4 or 5 zones done a night, times 7 nights a week is 28 to 35 zones! That's not a lawn. That's a campus!

"Okay, let's think about this. You're putting down an inch of water once a week. That means even if you can only run one sprinkler or zone at a time, you can have seven different zones. "

I don't know of anyone that runs only one zone a day. The main reason being that in most systems, at least some of the areas covered by zones overlap at the perimeters of the spray area. I have 3 zones like that. Some of the areas where they overlap tend to be the areas that get the least amount of water from each of the spray patterns. So, by doing one zone right after the other, you get more like an inch there, instead of 1/2 inch one day and a half the next. Once I start watering a continuous area, I want that whole area done at once.

If the zones do entirely seperate areas, then yes, you could do those on seperate days. But even then I'm not sure how practical it is. For issues like putting down chemicals, being able to know which days the whole lawn will be good and dried for mowing, etc, I think in most cases it's more practical to just water the whole thing the same day.

" Lots of people say not to water at night, as wet grass promotes disease and fungus. However, I think this is mostly nonsense."

Yes, I wrote that and I stand by it. Some people have the idea that watering at night must be avoided. Starting watering anytime at night so that it finishes by about 6AM works perfectly fine. That applies the water when the air tends to be calm and temps are lowest, minimizing evaporation. And as I pointed out, it rains in nature at night doesn't it? The real problems from water come when it's applied too frequently, keeping the grass constantly wet. That doesn't happen from watering once or twice a week.

If you're dealing with homeowners not understanding the whole range of issues it's perhaps safest to just say not to water at night. Especially if all they setup was a timer on a single zone with a single scheduled event. They'd end up overwatering the various risks associated with it. Trying say just because 'nature rains at night' greaty oversimplifies it. Nature does all sorts of things and quite a few of them are harmful so that argument really doesn't work. What DOES work is proper watering only as needed. Timers that support better schedules that are also ACTUALLY programmed to use them are a must. Not just on at X:XX running for X hours 7 days a week.

My irrigation system has seven zones, the controller has three programs and I use all three. The first program is for the lawn and treed areas (zones

Now you know someone who runs only one zone a day. :-)