Signs You Are Overwatering Your Spring Lawn

When it comes to growing your grass, you can have too much of a good thing. We know that a healthy lawn needs two basic things: sunlight and water. While you have no control over the amount of sunshine your grass may get each day, you do have some influence on its irrigation. Overwatered grass is a common problem, especially when irrigation systems are not adjusted to the spring rainfall. Keep in mind that your lawn isn’t suffering from the stifling heat of summer just yet, so watering needs to be in moderation.

The Problem with Overwatering

Overwatering suffocates your turf and stunts its root growth. Below your lawn surface, the soil contains tiny particles that surrounded by pockets of air and water. These pockets are what give oxygen and water to your grass roots. Unfortunately, where there is too much water, the air pockets become filled with water and oxygen gets eliminated from the soil. Thus, your grass essentially suffocates (or drowns) from overwatering.

To make matters worse, when the water is readily available in the soil, the roots of your grass won’t grow or expand to find water. In return, the root system stays stagnant and stunted. A shallow root system makes your lawn vulnerable to drought and disease.

Is Your Lawn Getting Too Much Water?

Since your grass can’t talk to you, you’ll need to look for physical signs that your lawn is being overwatered. Here are five easy ways to tell if you need to cut back on spring watering:

• Water runoff (tiny streams of water coming from your grass)
• Spongey or squishy lawn
• Increasing weeds (crabgrass or yellow nutsedge)
• Growing fungi (brown grass or mushrooms)
• More bugs (mosquitoes/gnats)

Restore Your Overwatered Grass

At Everlast Lawns and Landscapes, we take pride in our ability to help customers start, maintain and repair their lawn during all seasons of the year. When it comes to overwatering during the spring, our lawn experts can help correct this problem and establish a more appropriate irrigation schedule for optimal grass growth. Call today to learn more.