Take the “screwdriver test”. Your lawn will thank you.

Officially, the drought is over in California.  At least Gov. Jerry Brown said so.  But in Southern California and Nevada and Arizona and parts of Texas–even in New South Wales in Australia–drought conditions continue.

So many responsible homeowners are replacing their front lawns which we all now realize are nothing more than giant green sponges.  Keeping a lawn behind the house, however, can make a lot of sense, particularly as a play area for children.

And that backyard lawn needs regular watering.  But if you are not sure if you are watering your lawn too much or too little, here is an easy test:

Take an 8 inch screwdriver and push it into various places in your lawn about an hour and a half after you have watered.  If the screwdriver goes in easily, you are watering enough. You may even want to consider cutting back a bit on water.  If you cannot push the screwdriver all the way in, you need to increase the amount of water for the lawn.

Simple, right?

If you still love the look of a grass lawn, consider planting Buffalo Grass, a native grass of the American Plains. It has been hybridized in recent years so it now looks like a traditional lawn, rather than fodder for roaming buffalo herds.  It greens up in warm summer months, then goes dormant and brown in the winter. If you decide to go this route, be sure you plant plugs — not seeds. A Buffalo Grass lawn needs little or no watering at all.  Not much mowing either. (Note: this is not Buffelgrass, an invasive African grass that now threatens saguaros in Arizona.)

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