It’s time to water the lawn — finally

Oh, stop grumbling.

Sure, it’s hot and dry and you have to water your lawn now, but just think back through the past two months. This may be the first time you’ve had to drag out the hose.

Which just isn’t Kansas City in the summer.

“We’ve had enough rain to keep things going,” said Betsy Garcia of Lenexa, a K-State Research and Extension master gardener in Johnson County. “Nothing is looking dire like things usually are at this point.”

Heavier rains in June and average rains in July have kept lawns particularly green. And that’s especially the case when compared with drier weather of the past couple of summers.

As of Wednesday, July’s rainfall was just below the weather service’s 30-year average for that point in the month, with just over 3 inches of rain. That’s about half an inch more than the area saw all of last July and about 2.5 inches more than the area saw in July 2012.

June saw even more rainfall, making it the wettest since 2005, said Mike July, a senior forecaster for the National Weather Service.

It should be no surprise that, with sprinklers shut off, area water consumption has been down so far this July.

Johnson County WaterOne customers consumed 1.8 billion gallons of water in the first three weeks of the month, compared with 2.4 billion during the same time period last year.

“It’s 100 percent the weather,” WaterOne spokeswoman Mandy Cawby said.

(June numbers were not as dramatic: Customers used 1.9 billion gallons, compared with 2 billion in June 2013.)

But in the scheme of things, July’s three weeks are a small window, and given enough time, the increases and decreases in water usage tend to even out, Cawby said.

And the gap between last year’s and this year’s water usage could easily close, given a few hot, dry weeks like this one.

Kansas City Water Services has also seen a drop in water demand in those first three weeks of July, but spokeswoman Jennifer Rusch wouldn’t call the drop significant. When you’re producing over 100 million gallons of water a day, a 20 million to 30 million gallon difference isn’t as big as it looks.

“That’s just kind of the nature of our business; it ebbs and flows,” she said.

Although Garcia of Lenexa has been watering her lawn less than usual this summer, she offered the caveat that dry conditions were still pervasive.

“Basically what we’re getting is just keeping things looking green, but it’s not solving our drought problem,” she said.

The U.S. Drought Monitor stills lists much of the Kansas City area as abnormally dry.

But after a couple of dry summers, the summer rains have certainly helped trees and plants start to recuperate, said Dennis Patton, K-State Research and Extension horticulture agent in Johnson County. The cooler weather has helped as well. Although June saw average temperatures, July’s temperatures so far have been running quite a bit cooler than normal at this point, July said.

Normally, Patton would start to see shades of brown creeping into his lawn about this time in the summer. But three weeks into July, his lawn was still green.

“It’s been up to this point a wonderful summer,” he said.

Patton did point out one downside to the extra rain: more weeds.

“But the good news is our plants are more able to compete with them,” Patton said.

Plus, the rain has been timely, Patton said, which has kept plants from becoming stressed from the dryness.

“We’ve seen a good distribution of rainfall,” he said, “which is what it takes to keep everything looking green and lush.”

Kansas City lawns aren’t the only things staying green. He said local farmers would benefit from the extra rain on their crops, and gardeners could see their best tomato yields in years.

“It looks like it’s going to be really good for backyard gardeners,” he said.

This story was originally published July 24, 2014 at 11:24 PM with the headline "It’s time to water the lawn — finally."