Don’t start watering your lawn just yet!

SALT LAKE CITY — Is it time to start watering your lawn? Not just yet. Although many Utahns are eager to turn on their sprinklers this time around, it might be more effective to wait until later in the spring.

So what do you do until then?

Brad Wardle, Vice President of B-hyve Smart Home at Orbit Irrigation, joined the KSL Greenhouse show to discuss some things you can do before you start giving your lawn the water it needs.

If you couldn’t tell, the temperatures over the past few weeks have been fluctuating quite frequently. Some days felt nice and warm, while some days felt like winter suddenly made a comeback.

Taun mentioned that his lawn started showing signs of drought stress during the warmer days of the week. Fortunately, it rained last week, so he didn’t need to turn on his hose yet.

The first thing you should do before you start regularly watering your lawn around mid-May is test your sprinkler system. Ideally, this would have already been done a few weeks ago.

“Make sure that the sprinklers are spraying and emitting water like they’re supposed to be. Make sure that your pipes aren’t leaking,” Taun said.

Brad encourages using a smart irrigation controller because you can easily test it from your phone without having to go back and forth.

“‘Set it and forget it’ used to be a bad word when it came to watering. We wanted people to watch and manage their water system very carefully. ‘Set it and forget it’ now is a good thing because of technology,” he said.

Because these are water-saving devices, you can also get a statewide rebate of $75 for every smart controller you purchase by visiting utahwatersavers.com.

The KSL Greenhouse is on every Saturday from 8 a.m.-11 a.m. You can follow the show on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and on our website.