Buy a rain gauge to track how much rain or irrigation your yard receives. A rain gauge is one of the most important tools in your home landscape. With it, you can properly manage lawn and garden watering. Summer showers are often spotty and unpredictable. The only way to know how much rain we’re getting is to measure it using a rain gauge. While drought stress can impact plants, over-watering creates many concerns such as:
- Increases risk of pollution from yard and garden care products.
- Wastes valuable water and impacts water supplies.
- Encourages shallow root zones and increases plant susceptibility to disease.
- Wastes time and money – it costs money to irrigate.
A rain gauge measures rainfall and other precipitation events such as heavy dew and mist. Most lawns and gardens need about one inch of water each week. By measuring and recording rainfall, you will have an accurate account of what nature has already supplied. Irrigation should only be used to make up the difference and it should not be set to an automatic schedule.
