What Do Stage 3 Water Restrictions Mean To My Landscape?

Most of the cities in the Dallas area will be switching to their stage 3 water restrictions as of November 1st. In general that means an every two week schedule.

Since the watering you should be doing in the fall is roughly half of what you would do in the summer, the simplest method of programming your controller is to water the same number of minutes you did in the summer (60 minutes per week for spray heads, 120 for rotors) except you’ll do it every two weeks instead.

What does this mean for your lawn and landscape? As long as you don’t miss one of your days your landscape should be fine. Our recommended watering schedule should replace any water lost during the two weeks. One of the few question marks though is annual installation. Since we haven’t done this before, we don’t know how our pansies with their small root system will handle the extended time in between watering. This is also not the time to over-seed winter rye or fescue because you won’t be able to water enough for the seed to germinate. Everything else should be okay.

One last thing to whether or not you need a new controller. Many controllers won’t automatically run on an every two week schedule so you will either need to remember to run them manually or invest in a new controller. One of the best on the market is Weathermatic’s Smart Line controller. It can be programmed to follow nearly all water restrictions including Stage Three and, for an additional cost, can track the high and low of each day and calculate the minutes it needs to water. We’ve been installing this controller for years and have been very impressed.

Don’t forget we’re offering $25 of our first hour of sprinkler repair. If you would like help setting your controller, click here to request a sprinkler check.

Leave A Comment