Three weeks ago we killed our back yard lawn, re-graded the area last week, and threw about 4000 sq. ft. of new sod yesterday with no changes to perimeter beds, trees, or the rest of the house. Net of all this was we eliminated one of the four watering zones and made slight mods to the remaining ones all to accommodate a larger hardscape path than previously. So with the new sod I want to ensure adequate watering here in North Carolina’s Piedmont region with current temps in high '80’s to low '90’s (ºF of course).
Rachio’s flex stuff and other in-depth calculations are way beyond my meagre expertise and lightyears beyond any interest I may have so I’ve done a set-and-forget Flex Daily for all watering for this and the latter part of last season, working pretty well I think. So then the new sod. The sod farm lays out a very specific watering schedule for the first two weeks and I knew I’d have to do that manually. I knew about and have frequently used Quick Run but I didn’t know you can daisy-chain zones and do a Quick Run of several zones sequentially and of desired times without further involvement. I now kick off a 3-zone Quick Run manually, and all is taken care of. The first 24 hours have gone very well. I hope the rest of the two weeks ends up with grass beginning to formally take root, followed by a return to automatic watering.
At any rate, this “discovery” of mine turned out to be very helpful, and thanks for building it into the app. Using a Rachio 3, iPhone7, and whatever are the current versions of all software.
What kind of grass did you sod? We live in Midtown Atlanta, and my 800 sq ft front lawn is a mixture of every kind of fescue. Doesn’t do well in hot weather so thinking about planting another grass. Not sure what kind.
We turned our 1,200 sq ft back lawn into a natural zone (whatever grows is okay except weeds) and it’s being covered by native moss, a nice surprise. Mowing it down to the lowest level since there is a scattering of fescue still growing. The plan is to eventually cover it with pea gravel, so I turned off this irrigation zone (had to disconnect the wire). Mostly shade with three huge (100+ ft) trees covering it from all directions: Pecan, water oak, and heritage river birch.
Anyone else tried moss? Not sure if it’s worth pursuing or how to set Rachio.
We had Fescue but didn’t like it and one of the dogs had a mild allergic reaction to it. We replaced it with Zeon Zoysia. Of the various flavors of Zoysia, the Zeon one is good with both full sun and shade. Our yard has several huge crepe myrtles and large magnolia providing shade most of the day, hence the Zeon. The sod came from a farm in Georgia. So far, we and the dogs are very pleased.
While you are following that strict “new sod” watering plan, you might want to try Fixed schedules (either one with suitably long soak times to space it out, or multiple ones set to run at certain times for a certain amount of time, such as 10 minutes at 8, 10, 12, 2, 4, and 6 pm, etc.) If you go with the multiple schedules, you can set them with staggered end dates, so that you can gradually wean the sod off the daily watering. End the 10 am one in 2 weeks, the 2 pm one in 3 weeks, etc. It worked really well for me when I put in some seeds and wanted to keep them moist while they germinated, and then let me taper it off once they were established.
This is what I do every fall when I overseed. I reset the dates each fall and then just set it and forget about it. Works well for me. (and @SalisburySam, I’m down in Charlotte so I have similar conditions to you.)
Thanks to both @philosopher77 and @Linn for your suggestions and confirmation. Took me a bit of time to understand what you’re saying (novice, remember), but I think I get it. I’m almost a week into the new sod and so far it is going well. I’m a bit reluctant to push my luck with mucking around in the Rachio settings, and the manual Quick Runs have become a habit now. Given that this is a temporary situation for only another week or two at most, I think I’ll just stay the course.
The Flex Daily seems to be working well on my other 9 zones not affected by the new sod, and I hesitate to do anything to mess with that level of success.
But I have to say, your suggestion is an innovative way to accomplish the same thing for me, and I greatly appreciate the ideas. And this sounds really good for the overseeding each year so I will try to overcome my fear of the controller.
There is another factor here in my thinking: given the issues Rachio has had with HomeKit support (I’m one for whom it doesn’t connect), I may change out the controller this coming winter for a RainMachine unit. The reviews are good and HomeKit compatibility seems rock solid.
Again, thank you both for taking the time to educate me on Rachio functionality!
