Watering Tips for August
- , by Trudy Chuoke Trudy Chuoke
We have had a really nice wet Spring and Early Summer. In San Antonio, we are 42% above our normal rainfall. As I looked at my grass this last week, I noticed how great it looks, and I decided I wanted to stay on top of this rainfall that we have been blessed with this year. But I can get busy with work, and then when I get home, I forget about watering. I do not have an automatic sprinkler system. And if you don’t have one either, I have gathered some easy tips to help with watering.
Do you have some areas that are hard to water? At my home, I have this strip of grass between the sidewalk and the curb about 3 feet wide. A lot of my neighbors have given up on saving this grass and have replaced it with rock and pavers. I want to keep my grass. And it’s hard to water that strip of grass without watering the street or the sidewalk. While walking my dog the other night, I found a neighbor who had a perfect answer. Let me share what he did.
He did a convoy (like the truckers) of sprinklers. He piggybacked 4 sprinklers down that area that strictly watered only the grass, and not a drop was wasted in the street or sidewalk. He used smaller revolving sprinklers. These look like they have a fan on top. Look for sprinklers that have a linkable connection. Then, when you connect them, you will use “leader hoses”. A leader hose is what we use on the hose reels to connect that reel to the outdoor faucet and then to the hose. At our store, leader hoses come in 6, 10, or 15 ft. They have female connectors on both ends. You will need an adapter to make one end male so you can link the next sprinkler. Keep linking sprinklers until you cover the whole area.
For the rest of the yard, there are a couple of sprinklers that I really like. Rain Bird In-Ground Sprinkler with Clink-N-Go hose connect. It will cover up to 5200 sq. ft. It has a range from 25 to 41 ft. It can rotate from 0 to 360 degrees. This is why I like it. It is placed below ground level. You connect it to your hose with the quick connect that is included with the sprinkler. When you water, it will act like a pop-up rotary sprinkler. When you turn off the water, it goes back down flush with the ground. To me, it’s the most “automatic” manual sprinkler you can purchase.
If you do have an automatic sprinkler system but have always wanted drip irrigation for your foliage around the house. there's a conversion kit from Rain Bird that will take a regular pop-up spray and convert it to a micro bubbler drip system. Everything you need will be in the kit. And it will take you about 15 minutes. If you do that, there are a couple of tools you might want to have to keep up and maintain your sprinkler system. One is a spray head pull-up tool. Also look for a pull-up screwdriver; both will help you lift the sprinkler and hold it while you change the spray direction or replace the filter in the spray head. Did you run over a sprinkler head and break it off? Orbit makes a ½ and ¾ Extractor for plastic threaded fittings. It removes broken plastic threads from the fittings.
I hope these little tips help you. If you have any watering tips that work well for you, email or call me so I can share them with all the readers.
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Now to the email….
Question: All the wood came out of the joints in the driveway. I want to do this myself. Can you suggest a way to take care of this?
Answer: Don’t put wood back in the joint. Replace it with QuikCrete Self-Leveling Polyurethane Sealant. If the joint is deep, use backer rod or play sand to fill the joint to ½ inch to the top. Next, use some cardboard to block the ends of the joint, or the sealant will roll out. Then, using a caulking gun, begin to fill the joint. Give it a few days to cure.