The mid-summer heatwaves have officially arrived in the Intermountain West. With temperatures regularly climbing into the 90s and triple digits, your lawn is working overtime to stay healthy.
When homeowners see their grass starting to show signs of heat stress or slight yellowing in July, their immediate reflex is usually to double the watering time on their sprinkler clock. However, running your zones for one massive, continuous block of time doesn’t just cause your water bill to skyrocket—it actually wastes water through evaporation and surface runoff, leaving your grass roots just as thirsty as before.
If you want to maintain a lush, barefoot-soft yard without wasting a drop of water, it’s time for a quick mid-summer irrigation audit. By following these four simple, practical steps, you can optimize your sprinkler system to cut down on waste and train your turf to be naturally drought-resilient.
1. Deploy the “Tuna Can Test” to Find Dry Zones
Before you can fix an inefficient watering schedule, you need to know exactly how much water your sprinklers are actually putting down. Wind drift, clogged nozzles, and fluctuating water pressure can cause one side of your yard to get drenched while another side bakes in the sun.
The easiest way to measure your system’s efficiency is the Tuna Can Test:
The Setup: Take 4 to 6 empty tuna cans (or any small, flat-bottomed containers) and place them evenly across a single watering zone.
The Test: Run that specific sprinkler zone for exactly 20 minutes.
The Measurement: Use a ruler to check the depth of the water in each can.
Ideally, your lawn should receive roughly 0.5 inches of water per irrigation session during peak summer. If one can has 0.75 inches of water and another can only has a quarter-inch, you have an uneven distribution problem. This usually means a sprinkler head is misaligned, clogged, or blocked by tall grass, forcing you to overwater the whole yard just to keep that one dry spot green.
2. Switch to the “Cycle and Soak” Method
If you live along the mountain benches of Draper, the windy foothills of Herriman, or the sloped terrain of the Portneuf Valley in Pocatello, your soil likely contains heavy clay or rocks. This type of earth can only absorb water so fast.
If you run a standard sprinkler zone for 30 consecutive minutes, the top layer of soil will saturate within the first 10 minutes. The remaining 20 minutes of water will simply pool on the surface, run off down the slope, and waste away into the city gutters.
To eliminate this waste, transition your sprinkler clock to the Cycle and Soak framework:
Cycle 1: Water the zone for 10 minutes to open up the soil pores and moisten the surface.
The Soak: Let that zone rest for 45 to 60 minutes while your clock cycles through other parts of the yard.
Cycle 2 & 3: Run the zone for another 10 minutes, wait an hour, and run it for a final 10 minutes.
By breaking a heavy 30-minute block into three short intervals, you give the ground ample time to deeply absorb every drop. This prevents surface pooling and forces moisture deep into the soil profile.
3. Drive Roots Deep to Build Natural Heat Resistance
The secret to a truly drought-tolerant summer lawn isn’t more water; it’s deeper roots.
When you water your lawn every single day for just a few minutes, the roots have no incentive to grow downward. They stay shallow, hovering right near the surface of the soil. As soon as a July heatwave hits, that top layer of dirt dries out instantly, causing your grass to panic and go dormant.
By combining the Cycle and Soak method with an infrequent watering schedule (such as watering 3 days a week instead of every day), you saturate the lower levels of the soil. As the top couple of inches dry out between watering days, the grass roots are forced to stretch and grow downward to find the moisture trapped deep below. A lawn with a 6-inch root system will easily survive a scorching summer heatwave, while a lawn with a 1-inch root system will struggle constantly.
4. Conduct a Physical Sprinkler Head Inspection
Wind is one of the biggest water thieves in high-desert climates like Eagle Mountain, Logan, and the high plains of Wyoming. Mid-summer canyon winds can easily atomize fine sprinkler mist, blowing your expensive water onto the driveway, sidewalk, or your neighbor’s fence before it ever touches the grass.
Take 10 minutes this weekend to walk your yard while the system is running and check for these common mid-summer issues:
Misting vs. Droplets: If your sprinkler heads are creating a fine fog or mist rather than distinct water droplets, your water pressure is too high. Installing pressure-regulating heads or adjusting the valve can stop wind drift instantly.
Sunken Heads: Over time, sod matures and thickens, which can cause older sprinkler heads to sit below the thatch line. If a head can’t pop up fully above the grass line, it will slice the spray pattern, creating large dry patches.
Clogged Filters: If a sprinkler head is barely pushing out water or sputtering, unscrew the nozzle and clear out any fine silt or debris trapped in the plastic filter mesh underneath.
Upgrade to a Tougher, Water-Wise Turf This Summer
Sometimes, an old, poorly established, or heavily weed-infested lawn will drain your water bill no matter how much you tweak your irrigation schedule.
If you are tired of chasing dry patches and babysitting a struggling yard through the blistering heat, our premium, locally grown Kentucky Bluegrass blends are cultivated specifically to build the dense, interlocking root structures required to handle the Intermountain West climate efficiently.
Ready to completely reset your backyard with a high-density, farm-fresh turf barrier that locks in soil moisture on day one? Get in touch with our team at Hobbs Turf Farms today for a free, farm-direct quote!