Should I Water the Lawn After I Mow?

If you’re fighting the fight to keep a healthy, beautiful, lustrous, and fully manicured lawn, then you might have asked yourself – should I water the lawn after I mow, or before? We’re here to tell you that it’s definitely okay to water your lawn after you mow (but you probably shouldn’t water before you mow). Realistically, as long as you’re watering and mowing at all, you’re doing better than most. However, there are still a few factors to consider when striving to get the perfect lawn.

• Don’t water before you mow.

While it’s definitely fine to water after mowing the lawn, you should avoid watering before you mow. Why? If you’ve ever had to mow damp grass, then you know. Wet grass will just clump up as you mow it, clogging your mower and being a pain in general. This is also why you shouldn’t mow if it has rained recently. Instead, wait for your lawn to be completely dry so the process is smoother.

• Don’t water during the hottest part of the day.

Ideally, you should water your lawn during the early morning hours – preferably before 11 am during hot summer days. The hotter it gets outside, the more water will evaporate into the air rather than soak into your lawn. That means you should either mow your lawn early – around 9 am – or mow it the day before you plan to water. That ensures that you aren’t mowing an annoyingly wet lawn, and you’ll still be able to water before it gets too hot out.

• Don’t water at night.

On the other hand, watering too late in the evening isn’t really optimal either. If you consistently water in the afternoon or when it’s dark outside, it’s true that you won’t have to deal with evaporation – instead you’ll have to deal with your lawn being too wet. If moisture is allowed to stay in your lawn for long periods of time, you’re more likely to encounter fungus, mold, or mildew problems.

• Check the moisture level of your lawn.

Of course, you don’t have to water your lawn after you mow if your lawn is already sufficiently watered. One easy way to check is to do the footprint test. If you walk across your grass and your footprint stays, then your grass is dry and needs to be watered. If you don’t see any footprints, don’t worry about it – you can hold off on watering for a day or two.

• Keep a regular schedule.

An easy way to eliminate guesswork is to keep a regular schedule. Water the lawn every three days, and mow once a week on one of the off days. This ensures that your watering and mowing schedules don’t coincide, and you’ll never have to ask “should I water my lawn after I mow?” again.