Newly turfed lawn

[Asterix]

Just had a new lawn laid - the old had completely died (in Dubai) as it hadn't been watered by the previous owner.

Watering - we have an irrigation system installed that gives out around 300 litres per cycle, 3 cycles a day. 5am, 4pm & 11pm - lawn is approx 300sq metres.

As you can imagine, it's quite warm here and the evaporation rate is high. The cycles last for 3 minutes per sector and after a cycle I noticed that the water isn't really getting to the roots. Last night I hand watered it and made sure that plenty went down.

Would I be right in thinking that one long cycle at night would be far better than the three current ones as it would allow the water to soak through better?

The guys that installed the lawn say otherwise but it doesn't make sense to me.

[Simpo Two]

It's better to water lawns at night so the water has more chance to soak down to where it's needed.

Mind you trying to grow a lawn in the desert is not a great starting point!

[allgonepetetong]

You are far better to give it a good soaking less frequently than small sharp showers. Reasons are that frequent watering encourages the root system to grow shallow as that's where the water is.

Water it twice a week, but when you do, give it a damn good soaking and do it at night when the water will have a chance to penetrate into the soil rather than evaporate.

[m3jappa]

Water in the day in bright hot sunshine will sit on the blades and burn them, that and the water will not get through.

Fake lawns are the way forward.

[Asterix]

I think I'm going to change the irrigation timer to do a longer one at midnight and a shorter one at 4am.

The tank only holds 600litres so need to make sure it doesn't run out. Will have to experiment.