How long do you water your garden for?

[IRememberXanadu]

We have been watering our garden daily (lawn and flowers in the ground). We move the sprinkler every few minutes. However my DP just told me that apparently water needs to go down six inches to allow grass/plants to really benefit from watering. This might well be true but I haven't a clue how long it would take a sprinkler to deliver enough water to reach six inches down. So I'm just wondering whether we should simply water our garden for longer, or maybe twice daily. How often and how long for do you water yours?

I water my pots every day, and my roses and plants etc that are in the ground need watering 2 or maybe even 3 times a week. I give them a good soak.
I don’t water my lawn at all. It’s still looking okay. It rained a lot 2 weeks ago and it seems to have recovered it. I’ve barely had to cut it ally all this summer though.

I can never understand how Monty Don says to water things once a week. My garden is well established by now but needs regular water or it all starts to look very sad, especially hydrangeas

What a waste of water!

Only water pots. Never water anything in the ground/the lawn. That is a huge waste of water. Lawns recover v quickly. Let it go brown. It will soon green up when it rains.

What a waste of water!
It IS waste water - not being on mains drainage we have a very large underground tank which stores treated water from our BioKube sewage treatment system. All the washing water, bath water and rainwater also go in there and we can use it safely on the garden.

I’ll retract my sassiness

Dh waters all plants daily. They need a good soaking, takes a good few minutes.

I’ll retract my sassiness
Hehe thank you we do still use the headings water a bit but really do try to keep that to a minimum. I've been putting it on the vegetable patch as it's near the tap but not for long. And never during a hose pipe ban.

What about bedding plants in the boarders though? They won’t survive without water!

Yikes! That is long

Plants in borders don’t need 15 minutes of a sprinkler every day though.

Everyday as I have two small trees ina recently landscaped garden and my designer has been messaging me telling me to make sure the trees get enough water. Its been 2 months Ince my garden has been done so I won't be letting anything die otherwise what a waste of money on plants.

I also had newly laid lawn so I've had to make sure its watered daily although now it's been 6 weeks I can start to do it less than daily now

I agree with @SweatyAndGrumpy (excellent username BTW). We're on a water meter and as much as I like the look and feel of green grass, the cost outweighs the benefits as far as I'm concerned. It comes back just fine.

We also don't cut it very much in the summer as this makes it go brown quicker. One of our neighbours keeps his lawn really short, but it always goes brown far earlier than ours. That's not to say ours is knee high or anything, but 1.5-2inches long, rather than half an inch long like his.

If you look at golf courses around the world, even they only keep the putting greens actually green. The bits in between are decidedly brown in the middle of summer!

In terms of the border and potted plants, in this heat I water them every day. I water them less than DH does (who I'm convinced is tryng to drown them). Pots tell you when they've had enough as water starts coming out the bottom. Other plants I only water if they're flowering or due to flower soon and probably only soak them for a minute or so each. My massive hydrangea gets the most as it tells you when it's wilting.

Oh and yes, only ever water in the evenings when the worst of the heat and sun has gone by. I find it very relaxing!

I water the pots daily and a couple of new plants every few days.
It is donkeys years since it has been acceptable to water lawns imo .

I never water the garden as in leave the water on and a sprinkler on the lawn! Who actually does that? unless you've just had a new lawn or turf laid in which case it's acceptable.

I water my pots and window boxes using as much recycled water as possible. Takes me about 20-30 minutes per evening in very hot weather - 4 or 5 watering cans worth.

I water vegetable garden every 3 days roughly if no rain, and new nectarine tree that went in last month.
I don’t water anything else. No lawn, boarders, other trees.

The fruits and veg are growing very well, and we are Southern Europe with very little rainfall this year. even they don’t need daily watering. We use water butts where possible ( have 4), but they are completely empty atm.

Oh that’s really helpful. I was going to look at a system like this and now know which one to avoid, with dodgy social media practices.

You've already had one post removed. Now fuck off.