By Pat Dray
The Garden Spot
Pat Dray
Although the Earth is considered a “water planet,” with over 70 percent of the surface covered by the stuff, less than 1 percent of that water is considered available for human needs. The other 99 percent is in the oceans, frozen in glaciers and ice caps or in soil moisture.
As our state has become more developed, residential usage has expanded significantly with a concurrent growth in the use of managed landscapes – in other words, lawns.
Unfortunately, with expanded lawns comes expanded use of water for irrigation and chemicals for turf maintenance. According the EPA fact sheet “Outdoor Water Use in the United States,” approximately 30 percent of the available water is used for outdoors, the majority of which is for lawn irrigation.
Understanding that lawn irrigation is a non-essential use of a limited resource should lead us to reducing usage through a few easy steps.
First, if you are thinking about reseeding a lawn, be aware that no turf grasses are native grasses and therefore do not support biodiversity. You can reduce water usage by reducing the size of turf areas and instead use landscape plants such as ground covers that are drought resistant.
If you must reseed or replant, choose a tall fescue over a Kentucky blue grass since the fescue has been developed to be drought resistant.
You do not need to water a lawn daily. Lawns typically need about one inch of water a week, with a deeper watering leading to deeper root growth and a healthier lawn. Since the average annual rainfall in Connecticut is 48 inches, there should be many weeks when irrigation is completely unnecessary. If using an irrigation system, use one with a weather-based sensor to prevent overwatering. Studies have shown that a properly installed weather-based system will reduce water usage by about 15 percent.
Lawns are also treated as heavy feeders, with many vendors selling “four step programs” whether they are needed or not. Overtreatment of turf is problematic for a variety of reasons, including your health and your wallet. The EPA estimates that 95 percent of residential lawn pesticides contain possible or probable carcinogens – hence all those little yellow signs that pop up faster than dandelions in the spring.
Sustainable lawn practice begins with a soil test. What nutrients are actually missing from your soil? Is the pH such that it allows for nutrient uptake? Tailor any program based on actual need to minimize overuse of lawn chemicals and read the instructions to avoid overapplication.
If you use a landscape firm to manage your lawn and they haven’t done a soil test, they are probably overtreating. Overtreatment creates more nutrient and pesticide runoff into our watershed (Long Island Sound) and to lakes and ponds, which increases aquatic plant growth, killing fish and amphibians.
Finally, don’t mow too short. Leave the grass three inches tall, and leave the grass clippings since they provide nitrogen to the lawn. Practicing good management techniques are easy and affordable.
If you’re interested in learning more, you can download the EPA fact sheet at 19january2017snapshot.epa.gov/www3/watersense/pubs/outdoor.html. For more information about soil testing, you can visit soiltest.uconn.edu.