Just found out how much water my new sod actually needs and I'm shocked

I was setting up a sprinkler system for the fresh Kentucky bluegrass I put in last Tuesday. The guy at the nursery said 'keep it damp,' so I was doing 15 minutes twice a day. Looked it up on the extension office website last night and they say new sod needs a full inch of water daily for the first two weeks. That's like 45 minutes of my sprinkler running! No wonder the edges were looking brown. I've been underwatering it by more than half. Anyone else get totally wrong advice on watering new grass?

4 comments

4 Comments

campbell.tara1mo ago

Totally. @wyattrobinson nailed it. Same bad tip killed my first lawn.

sagep1928d ago

That vague advice gets so many people.

jordang3228d ago

Oh man, I gotta push back just a little bit on that one. I mean, "keep it damp" is definitely super vague, but I don't think that was the main issue for me. Idk, for most cool season grasses the real killer is overwatering or watering too shallow. Like, you can keep it damp on the surface but if the roots don't get a deep soak every few days they just stay weak and die off. Maybe it's just me but I think what really messed up my first lawn was not knowing the difference between damp topsoil and actually watering deep enough.

wyattrobinson1mo ago

Honestly "keep it damp" is the kind of vague advice that messes up so many simple projects.