It's time to adjust your irrigation schedule

As we approach November, it’s getting close to time to reset irrigation controller. Why should you bother? Wasting water never makes sense. The average home in my community uses 200 gallons per day. It may not sound like much, but add that up over a year, and that’s 73,000 gallons. Forty percent of that is typically for outdoor watering. That’s nearly 30,000 gallons per year. With the water situation here at critical levels, it makes no sense to water plants when they don’t need it.

Days are getting shorter and cooler, so plants require less water. Irrigation of desert adapted and native plants can go to once a week starting in late October. For well-established native plants (at least 3 years old) you can back off to twice a month.

There is one caveat to this, however. The only way you can change your watering schedule is if you have been watering correctly from the start. This means deep watering so the entire root system gets a good soaking. If you have been engaged in shallow watering, the root system will not be as drought tolerant, and the plant may show signs of stress if you back off.

So how to change this? Start watering your plants deeply and slowly, and over a growing season (through next summer) you will be able to adjust your irrigation in the winter months to save water. The truth is, a vigorously growing landscape plant is not happier. Studies have proven moderately stressed plants, plants that are not watered and fertilized regularly, are less prone to insect pests and disease.