To follow up on Amy’s enlightening tip on lawn watering yesterday, the most efficient and reliable method I have found for watering is a garden timer. If you live in the arid west or a drought region, regular watering is a must for your garden or lawn. A garden timer, available both as a battery operated or an electric model, will save you time and water, and prevent you from forgetting to turn off the sprinklers after sufficient watering.

A garden timer can be programed to water every day, every other day, every third day, etc. for whatever length of time you chose at whatever time you wish it to begin. Watering at night will cut down on evaporation rates, and in fact day time watering is restricted in many communities. According to Littleton, Massachusetts’ water department’s general manager, "Daytime watering is costly and largely ineffective." Without a garden timer, I would be unable to water my garden at 2:00am. Some people do not recommend watering lawns at night, as it may promote fungus growth; however, I have never had this problem.

A garden timer is an investment at about $40 for a battery operated model, but a good model will be efficient and last a long time. I have timers that are ten years old, and I usually get two seasons out of one set of batteries. In addition, garden timers can be used for manual watering by programming the timer to shut off after the desired length of time, and they can be turned off easily when precipitation is expected. Garden timers save time, maintain regular watering schedules, are efficient, and make water conservation easy.

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