Watering new(ish) turf?

[Radian]

Finally laid some turf above my retaining walls around new extensions back in February. It got off to a great start up until mid May, since when, we've had very little rain. Only a couple of mm since then. Haven't cut the grass much so still quite long but starting to show signs of yellowing.

I get that it's not wise in general to water lawns but what about new(ish) turf?

 

[saveasteading]

A Watering can with rose. One pass a day will be all it needs.

[joth]

We put down new lawn in April and our guy said it's basically not possible to water it too much. We have a bunch of hozelock flipflopping sprinklers and it perks up everytime. Becoming a nightmare to deal with all the cuttings tho.

 

[Sparrowhawk]

27 minutes ago, joth said:

We put down new lawn in April and our guy said it's basically not possible to water it too much. We have a bunch of hozelock flipflopping sprinklers and it perks up everytime. Becoming a nightmare to deal with all the cuttings tho.

 

Got space for a compost bin? I've wrapped mine in glassfibre insulation (inside PVC sheet) and a bin full of lawn cuttings halves in volume in a week.

[Radian]

2 hours ago, saveasteading said:

A Watering can with rose. One pass a day will be all it needs.

Wow, really? I guess the regularity of once a day gets the job done. Sounds like I should go against the advice that keeps popping up in my news feed - that says not to water lawns - at least for a while. The advice seems to be to conserve water on the basis that grass will naturally recover once the rains come again. Last year the old lawn was like a doormat all summer then bounced back. But the roots will have been well established unlike the new stuff.

 

A proper mulching cut seems to be recommended to recycle the nutrients rather than cart the clippings away but I've never had a mower that will do this. The grass needs to be chopped into very short pieces. 

[TonyT]

Well  when I watch the green keepers at a local club, they regularly fit new turf.

they always water for hours…. And the grass looks great

 

[Temp]

If it was laid in February it will be well anchored down by now. Our 17 year old lawn is showing some yellowing and if we don't have some rain this week I'll be starting to water it in the evenings with a sprinkler from our rainwater tank.

[Temp]

28 minutes ago, TonyT said:

Well  when I watch the green keepers at a local club, they regularly fit new turf.

they always water for hours…. And the grass looks great

 

 

When we laid our turf we promptly had a 10 days of sun and wind. It was a nightmare trying to keep it wet enough to stop it shrinking. We had to run two sprinklers and move them around every hour. If not big gaps appeared. I'd never lay turf when dry weather is forecast or without having sprinklers available.

[Radian]

Was about to get the sprinkler out today but noticed 13mm rain forecast for tonight so decided to wait. Can see it heading over the channel now on the radar so fingers crossed!