"Skip A Week" of Irrigation This Winter

Did you know that overwatering in the winter is harmful to your lawn by encouraging pests and disease?

Thanks to research by the University of Florida, we know that grass doesn’t need to be watered as often during the cooler months of December, January and February and that it’s best to "Skip a Week" of watering. During these cooler months, one-half to three-quarters of an inch of water every 10–14 days is sufficient. Anything more than three-quarters of an inch of water can be harmful to your lawn and can encourage pests and disease.

The easiest way to skip a week of watering is to simply turn your irrigation timer to ‘off’ for the week that you want to skip, and ‘on’ for the week that you want to water. In fact, if your lawn has received any significant rainfall, you can turn off your irrigation system and operate it manually as needed.

You can determine when your grass needs water when:

• Grass blades are folded in half lengthwise on 30 percent of the lawn.
• Grass blades are blue-gray.
• Footprints remain on the lawn for several minutes after walking on it.

Skipping a week of irrigation also helps conserve drinking water supplies that we need for critical uses during the dry season. In fact, if everyone in the region skipped just one week of irrigation this season, it could save an estimated 1.9 billion gallons of water! Now that’s a lot of water!

For additional information about water restrictions and water conservation, please contact your local utility or visit the District’s website at WaterMatters.org/SkipAWeek/.

Rainfall in Hillsborough County for the month of November was .95 inch. November is traditionally the driest month of the year.