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How to care for your lawn during a drought and with water restrictions? In this video, @Lawncology
a lawn care expert, explains how to grow the healthiest lawn with less watering that doesn’t hit you in the pocket. Watch for tips!
00:00 - Introduction
00:31 - About John Perry, Lawncology, and lawn care
02:06 - The right approach to growing a lawn
03:42 - Tips to preserve lawns in the dry areas
07:06 - A different watering approach to lawns
10:06 - Trend to removing lawns
13:54 - Water for tree vs. water for lawn
16:42 - What is the best time to water a lawn
18:09 - Systems to run the watering
19:54 - Conclusion
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0:00
The so-called mega drought that is afflicting the American West is the worst in 1,200 years
0:06
That's according to a study published yesterday. We heard about the water restrictions in Los Angeles, and we just thought, boy, you know
0:15
if this isn't a sign, then I don't know what is. While many Californians have restrictions on watering their lawns
0:23
authorities in Southern Nevada are taking even more drastic measures. Well, my name is John Perry. I'm the owner and founder of Green County Fertilizer Company
0:35
and I also have a YouTube channel called Lawncology. I have been in the industry as far
0:41
as lawn and landscape for 27 years, pretty much all out West. I've lived in California for a little
0:49
while, seen the drought in action there. I currently live in Utah, drought in action here
0:55
Spent some time in Nevada, drought there. I've kind of gone through the whole thing and dealing with water restrictions and healthy
1:03
plants and turf is kind of second nature for me now. Thank you. Thank you for joining
1:08
My name is Michael. I'm the Spist Consumer. Tell us a little bit more about lawncology
1:14
What do you do? What's the purpose of your social media channels
1:19
What are you trying to educate consumers about? Sure. So for the most part, I just like to talk about lawn care in general
1:25
So it's a lot of things just around the home. I teach about lowering inputs as far as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, how you can have a healthy lawn with less inputs, less insecticides, less herbicides
1:39
I kind of teach more of a conservation method. And that includes the soil, soil profiles and sort of educating people on what's possible with their growing area, their growing medium and just maximizing their overall results through a slightly different method than what would be considered the typical norm and just showing what's possible
2:00
What is needed for someone who wants to build a lawn? What is the right approach
2:05
What shall a person do? There are a number of different ways. And honestly, it depends on geographically
2:10
geographically, where you're located, what your soil looks like, what perhaps was taken away as
2:16
your home was built, what topsoil was stripped away. For me, just sort of as a baseline, when I'm
2:21
putting in new lawn, new installation, putting in turf or seed or anything like that, there's a couple
2:27
of different methods that I take all the time. A topsoil layer moving between three and six inches
2:33
start with six, it packs down to three. I tend to mix some other things into that soil as well
2:38
some humic materials, some extra organic matter. And then even in my own personal lawn
2:43
and one of the things that kind of got me into the water conservation side was using water absorbing polymers in the soil as well before planting or before putting
2:52
sod down. So in my own personal property here in Utah, where we've been in drought for a number of
2:58
years, I water significantly less than anybody else and have the healthiest lawn. So I'm used
3:06
to being able to take things to a point of, you know, getting the roots down deeper and
3:11
allowing for a more conservative approach that just yields an incredible result
3:17
So that's typically how I would take things. We are familiar with Israel experience where people have learned to grow beautiful plants
3:28
There's practically no water. What shall Californians do and Utah residents, Nevada residents
3:34
What shall they do to preserve the lawn or teach their plants to absorb less liquid
3:41
When I lived in California, we were going through droughts. This has been, I moved back to Utah about seven years ago
3:48
So it was about seven years prior to that time. So we kind of had the ups and downs and saw the reservoirs go way down
3:56
My soil where I was, I was outside the Santa Cruz area, was just, it was sand
4:00
Everything around there was sand. There was no stability. So any water you put down, gone, just like that
4:06
And there isn't a good way to water that heavily and expect a long-term result
4:14
It's something that takes this kind of small amounts on a regular basis
4:18
And if you are able to do that, to not be limited to say once a day, or I'm sorry, once a week to put water out
4:26
you actually will use less water over time because people aren't trying to make it all up at one heavy watering
4:32
So, you know, for California, what's changed a lot there is that people are getting rid of lawns left and right
4:41
They're just they're they're taking their landscaping down to zero, doing a lot of zero escaping
4:45
They're doing a lot more gardening and clearing out the grass. And, you know, for me, I see I see more of a problem with that later, depending on what they're putting in and what they're putting in place, because grass has incredible cooling effects
5:00
obviously it's like a filtration plant when, when water comes through from rainfall and things to be
5:05
able to move through that profile is really good for the environment in general. So, you know, I
5:10
get a little nervous about some of these more impermeable surfaces that are going in and really
5:15
95% of the water in California goes to agriculture right now. That's, that's really where it's
5:20
headed And the rest of it is for drinking and for lawns And there just not there there isn enough of it if you go through drought this many years in a row to where they never going to sacrifice the food
5:33
or the crops. That is always going to take primary focus. So it will likely, and sad to say
5:40
for most Californians, they're going to be giving up their lawn and it's going to cost them money
5:45
They're going to lose it. It's probably going to die. And there's not much to do if it's already
5:51
there. If you're starting from scratch, however, there are things you can do to put in a lawn
5:56
like I said, that doesn't require a whole lot of water that could actually conserve and last for a
6:00
long time. And I think that that is, it's just been overlooked for too long about how the installs go
6:07
and then what's possible going later, you know, if we do go into these five-year droughts, seven-year
6:12
droughts. So the mindset of the soil really has to change. Like how do you increase the water
6:20
holding capacity of the soil that you have to allow for the most efficient uptake of water
6:25
for your lawn. And ultimately, that holding capacity is what's going to allow for less
6:31
water to be applied. So the mindset has to change. And sometimes the death of a landscape is what it
6:38
takes. Today, Californians who had their loans for 20, 30 years, if I understood you correctly
6:46
is your recommendation to completely remove the old lawn and if the person is to rebuild it
6:53
with a new approach to have more water absorbing soil what would your recommendation be or maybe
7:03
it's different watering approach that you would recommend you know i wouldn't i wouldn't recommend
7:08
anybody lose their lawn i feel like this is something that's going to happen uh just because
7:14
water is going to be shut down to such a point that it will be nearly impossible to maintain
7:19
unless you're cheating as it were you know and and when i lived there people were pretty
7:26
they weren't very not if they saw somebody watering they would report it you know they
7:31
would call the water company that you know was like water police and i you know i understand
7:36
that because there is enough of a fear about it um and if somebody is being abusive with water
7:42
you kind of, you know, nobody wants to waste. That's just money. Right. And I think that for
7:48
most people, most consumers, if you're talking about conservation or anything like that
7:54
it has to be equated to dollar signs. If you're being wasteful, you're wasting money every single
8:00
time. So if you're watering inefficiently, you're wasting money, not just wasting a resource
8:04
but something that's going to hit you in the pocketbook. Right. So I think for a lot of people
8:09
you know, a more efficient watering system is the most important thing. So perhaps it's
8:15
swapping heads out on an existing lawn and getting more lower flow, but looking at things like
8:22
ET controllers that are going to, you know, tell your system like, hey, there's this much
8:27
evapotranspiration that happened, we're going to go ahead and water. So it's on more of a system
8:32
that's actually monitoring. So it's not just set it and forget it, which is where I think is probably
8:39
the worst American mentality. I'm going to put it that way. It is what it is. It's you set the
8:46
timer and you never change it. And then you wonder either why it's all brown or why it's
8:51
always soaking wet. You don't really ever change your model. So using more technology would be
8:56
extremely beneficial for most people who are trying to keep their lawn, trying to save their
9:01
lawn and trying to work through restrictions. Years ago here, so this is going back probably to
9:06
2000, 2001 kind of timeframe. If you were to put on a receiver and have an ET controller
9:15
then you did not have to follow the watering restrictions set forth by your water district
9:21
because it was being properly monitored. So they knew it wasn't just going to come on and run for
9:27
10 or 12 hours because the system was going to say. So it was like a pass to allow for efficient
9:33
watering. And I believe that's something that could be put into play more, you know, with some
9:39
of these districts to say, look, if you're using something technology-wise, if you are, you know
9:45
aerating and top dressing with compost and putting more organic matter in this world, all of these
9:49
things like that will make a major impact on the overall use of the water that's going into the
9:53
So your view on California and western parts of the United States, you think significant droughts
10:01
to continue and lawns may just disappear? I feel that it's a trend that is happening
10:09
And for sure in California, there was a big push, and it's probably still going on, that was grow food, not lawns
10:17
And you would see signs in people's front yards that, you know
10:21
had removed all their turf and they had raised beds and whatnot that they were growing. And that was the push, grow food, not lawns
10:26
And, you know, unfortunately, it came from a little bit of a different
10:31
viewpoint. It was more of a chemical scare. You know, people worried about the different
10:37
pesticides and, you know, whatever was going on to a lawn. That was what the main concern was
10:43
is carcinogens and things like that So you know the thought of removing a lawn was going to remove a big chemical footprint not necessarily water because if a garden goes into place and you doing you know vegetables and all of these other things they also take a significant amount of water
11:00
But people view a lawn as a wasteful space. So I don't agree with that
11:08
And coming from my background, I have had very large lawns that are, you know, 10, 15, 20,000 square feet that I maintained
11:17
And then when I was in California, it was about 250 square feet, tiny. That was all there was of a lawn
11:23
And when it's that small or when you're living in sort of that type of a postage stamp area
11:28
there almost is no reason to have that anyway. But it becomes like, what's the point of that
11:34
Why am I putting the effort in? But say where I am now, I'm in the desert, high desert
11:40
I still have what would be sort of a less than average size lawn for the country
11:45
I've run about 2,500 to 3,000 square feet here. National average is like 4,000 square feet or so
11:51
And I wanted to be responsible with the amount of turf that I had in. But this is part of my lifestyle, my family's lifestyle
11:59
It's being out on the grass. It's enjoying the grass. It's feeling that cooling on a hot day when you can go sit on your lawn and the temperature is much cooler than anywhere else
12:08
And again, I don't waste water. And here we have a one, it's going to get down to one day a week watering restriction
12:17
Right now it's two days, pretty much every year. It's the same way. I, and I'm just going to say it, I ignore that
12:25
I totally ignore it. I water the lawn as needed. And that keeps me so far below what everybody else is doing
12:33
I have a flat water, the lowest amount that I pay. I just want everybody out there, the consumers to realize this
12:39
My water bill is $70. That's what it is unless I go over and then it starts to really climb. I have never gone over that. And the total gallon is just 16,000 gallons. My neighbors, same size lawn, they're paying three to four times as much as I am because they're doing it inefficiently
12:55
so I know how it works I know what it looks like when grass is dry and I know how to water into
13:01
that but that's just me paying attention and using technology to my favor using my smart
13:08
irrigation system using that's that's vitally important and then your lawn is not this wasted
13:13
space it's not this thing that's sucking up natural resources it really doesn't even require
13:18
that much fertilizer I mean there's so much uh five years I didn't put a single herbicide on my
13:23
lawn didn't have any weeds anywhere because why i watered it properly i cut it properly
13:27
so maintenance was all it took to have a very beautiful landscape and never never feel wasteful
13:36
on anything water consumption of the garden per square yard of lawn or have a peach tree
13:44
peach tree also requires water is there significant difference between of water for the lawn versus the tree? Yes, water for trees versus lawns, absolutely. You can get
13:57
away with a number of just gallons, 10, 12, 15 gallons a year for a single tree. It doesn't
14:06
really require a significant amount of water. And the roots are tapping down into water that
14:11
you're not getting to anyway, three, four or five feet down where the soil remains moist and it's
14:16
just going to do what it needs to do. That would be different with crop production. You know, if
14:21
you're trying to grow almonds in California or anything like that, that's going to require a lot more water because water is required for fruit and bloom. So it's a little different than with
14:30
a lawn. Most lawns in the heat of the summer, really kind of the minimum water requirements
14:37
are about an inch and a half of water weekly. Take that over however much space you want to
14:42
That's kind of the number that you're going to get. So, you know, it doesn't have to be there, but most people, again, they're going to set up a system in a way that gets that every single week, no matter what, no matter what the demand is, they're going to put the same amount on
15:00
when really it's in the hottest and the driest time where you need the water for conservation
15:07
The beauty about turf, and especially it kind of depends, it's going to vary by region
15:12
cool season grass, warm season grass. Where I am, middle of summer, the grass pretty much slows down
15:19
to where it's not really going to grow. It's not its time to grow. So it actually really doesn't
15:23
require that much water because it's not forcing growth and pulling more water up into its tissue
15:28
So I'm able to kind of conserve even then. In, you know, more southern places where you've got Bermuda or St. Augustine and things like that, they are in the height of the growth during the hottest summer months. So, you know, the folks in San Diego that are dealing with Bermuda and zoysia and things like that, they might have a little bit of a different type of watering schedule than somebody that would be further up north. And it just sort of shifts, though, you know, summer is not that long
15:55
It's not that long. And I think that people forget that. It's like they think that this is a demand all the time
16:03
It's not a demand all the time. It is a demand part of the time. And it's the rest of the time when grass goes dormant, there's no water going out anyway
16:12
So you know for me here I have about three and maybe four months where I would need to run my irrigation out of 12 And that it right And so I feel again if people just pay attention everything would be just fine But
16:28
you know, typically turf is going to be somewhere around one and a half inches a week for its
16:33
you know, basic demands in the summertime. What is the best time during the day or during the night
16:40
to water it alone? What you really want to do is try to preserve the coolness of the soil as
16:45
long as possible. Okay. So really watering early in the morning and even up into sunrise is going
16:50
to be your best options, no matter what, because that's when the temperatures start to come off. One, the big reason, the way that you're sort of preventing stress on the turf is by cooling off
17:01
the soil. You're cooling off the plant. When the plant gets hot, it suffers and starts to shut down
17:06
So the more water you can get in as temperatures rise, the cooler that plant is going to stay
17:11
Once the sun goes down, everything's cooling off anyway, so you're not giving it any benefit of more cooling at that time
17:18
You're actually, if you start watering when the sun goes down and you do it, say, before midnight, and that's your time frame
17:24
you're probably losing more to just groundwater and loss than you would if you waited a little bit longer to when the plant is going to take the demand on that water
17:34
So the watering at 3, 4 o'clock in the morning is probably the better time that you are suggesting
17:39
I tend to start mine around 5, even 6 o'clock in the morning. Really, when the sun is starting to get light here is about when I run mine
17:47
And I have a lot of very low flow MP rotors that don't put out a whole lot of gallons per minute
17:54
And I just kind of run everything through, you know, just short little sessions to get enough water that I need
18:01
Thank you. Is there a system that you would recommend for running the watering
18:08
I use just kind of a, honestly, it's a generic smart controller
18:13
It's made by Orbit. It's called the Beehive. Mine is a 16 station system
18:19
And I'll tell you why. Because I said I had a kind of small lawn. The 2,500 square foot main lawn, but I also have a thousand square foot putting green
18:26
that I mow at less than a tenth of an inch. It's bent grass on sand
18:31
So I had to make sure I had enough just to, you know, get all of these little stations
18:35
out there. And even with that, it doesn't take much water. So the Orbit Beehive is one that can have an ET controller connected to it
18:44
Rakeo system is another one that's out there. Rainbird obviously makes those
18:49
Hunter, I believe, has one that you can do ET controllers on as well
18:53
Most of these, even if you don't do the ET controller, they have weather sensors
18:58
They're hooked to your Wi-Fi, and they'll shut off if they know rain's coming
19:02
They do all of that kind of stuff for you. So even that makes a big difference
19:07
But there is something about walking onto the grass and feeling it to know if it needs it or not
19:19
We lose touch. That's the biggest thing I'll say. One of the big things I just love to convey to people is you need to touch this grass
19:30
You need to see your soil. You need to be a part of what you're trying to grow
19:34
This is your little plot of land and you should know it and you should care for it if you want
19:40
it to be beautiful and flourish. It can't just be done with machines. John, thank you very much
19:44
With this, I would be wrapping up our conversation. Is there anything that you would like to share with our consumers, viewers who's going to
19:53
be seeing it? My biggest concern with water restrictions, no matter where they are, is that every time
19:59
I've seen one put into place, more water is used. Every time
20:03
every time. When I was in Reno, what would happen is there were two days a week that could water
20:08
If you're on one side of the street, it was one day, other side of the street was next
20:12
Every single person would fire on those sprinklers up and down every lane that was on an even
20:17
numbered. And it would tax the water system so bad that the water in the sprinklers wouldn't
20:23
have enough pressure to water a lawn effectively. And people would do more and more and more and
20:28
they would water it all night. Somebody did an audit on that and said, we need to just get rid
20:32
of it. And the first season out that that happened, water usage went down by like 30%
20:37
So get rid of the restrictions and people watered less. It's that sort of scarcity mentality that
20:44
people have like, but here, I'm going to use as much of it as possible, which is so backwards
20:50
if you're trying to do any sort of conservation. And that's what I would have people look out for
20:56
I already know what's happened. It's talking to a customer of mine in Florida, same thing is going
21:00
on down there right now. They've got one day a week up in the Jacksonville area and people are
21:05
just on that day running and running and running and running and running irrigation all day
21:10
And it has no effect because their soil is sandy and it's dry in two or three days. It doesn't do
21:17
any good. So the grass is dying. It's just dying. So if you're out there and you're on a waterboard
21:23
really look at that you have to understand the most people are going to take as much as they can
21:31
get in the limited time they have it rather than to space things out and really know how to conserve
21:38
something so teach a man to fish don't take away their rod
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