City of Santa Rosa Watering Schedule

Minutes per week:

April: 23 minutes per week
May: 33 minutes per week
June: 42 minutes per week
July: 45 minutes per week
Aug: 39 minutes per week
Sept. 24 minutes per week
Oct. 15 minutes per week

The sample lawn-watering schedule is based on sprinkler application rate of 2' per hour.

Watering Run Times:

Lawns:

Divide your irrigation run times into multiple start cycles, one hour apart, in the pre-dawn.  Instead of watering one 15-minute cycle, program your irrigation controller to water two 7-minute cycles at 5:00 AM and 6:00 AM, or three 5-minute cycles at 5:00 AM, 6:00 AM, and 7:00AM.  This prevents runoff by allowing the water to efficiently soak in to the soil with each cycle.  Remember, if your lawn is drying out or if your lawn is soggy, adjust the minutes per run time slightly or take a day off per week.

This lawn schedule is for pop-up spray sprinklers.  Lawns with pop-up rotors or impact sprinklers may need more time per run cycle because the sprinklers don’t put out as much water as pop-up spray heads.

Call Turf-Time each week for updated watering recommendations based on current weather conditions. You can use the suggested run times (given in minutes) to schedule irrigation for spray, rotor, or impact sprinklers.

Shrubs:

Drip systems that water low-water-use shrubs should be scheduled for 15-25 minute start times and will require 1-3 days per week on average.  Spray sprinklers that water established shrubs could be watered in the same fashion as the lawns above, with less days per week.  Always remember that existing shrubs will usually need less water per week.

NOTE:  On hot spells in the summer, do not turn your irrigation system on during the daylight hours or in the evening.  Existing lawns and shrubs that are watered with the recommended schedules above, should be able to withstand the hot weather; if extra water is needed, add minutes to your run cycles or add and extra day for that week.