Buying A Sprinkler? Know Average Rainfall.

To maintain a healthy and verdant lawn, proper watering is essential. Yet if your yard is large, then it can be ridiculously time consuming to water your lawn by hand. Luckily, new rainfall helps save on the work and your pocket book, but if the average rainfall in your area is not enough to maintain a healthy lawn, then you should consider purchasing a sprinkler system. A garden rain gauge can help you determine exactly how much rain has fallen.

Generally, you will make the decision of an above ground or underground sprinkler system based on how much time you want to invest in maintaining the system, the size of your lawn and how much cash you want to spend.

Underground systems are typically more expensive, but if you have an enormous lawn, then they are the best choice. Underground systems make it easier by far to maintain your lawn watering since you won't have to worry about removing the sprinklers each time you mow or work on your lawn.

If your lawn is somewhat smaller, on the other hand, an elaborate underground system might be going a little overboard. At the low end of the scale of above ground sprinklers, you can buy a sprinkler attachment for your garden hose and just place that on the lawn. This method can work for larger lawns if you live in an area where the average daily or weekly inches rainfall is non sufficient.

Typically, drip systems are unsuitable for lawns. These, instead, are most often used for spot watering of specific plantings or sections of a lawn. A drip system can be useful for an especially dry section of lawn that has highly absorbent soil, since they drip water straight into the soil instead of spraying it over the grass. Before buying any type of sprinkler system, understand what type of soil you have and what the average rainfall is in your area.

Once you get your sprinkler system set up and running, you will need to test it to discover how much it needs to distribute during each daily water session. You can do this by setting up a simple homemade gauge or an electronic rain gauge on your lawn and turning the sprinkler on. After ten minutes, shut it off and measure the amount of water inside. If there is a quarter of an inch of water in the gauge, then you know it will take forty minutes to apply an inch of water to your yard. Of course, your area's average rainfall also determines how much you will water.