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Late summer and early fall are a key time to re-seed and repair any damage that your lawn has taken through the spring and summer. But even with lower temperatures, your grass still needs a good irrigation system to look its best. And here are five easy things to do to make sure your irrigation system is keeping up with your lawn!

1. Irregular brown patches
Irregular brown patches scattered across your lawn can be a sign of drought stress. If your brown patches are concentrated in a specific area, such as where your dog likes to go, they may have a different cause. But if they’re scattered around the full lawn, particularly in higher areas, improving your irrigation can be key.

2. Pull Test
If you have brown patches on your lawn, does the grass come up when you pull it? Brown grass that is resistant to being pulled up is generally the result of insufficient water. If your grass comes up easily when you pull it, however, you might have a grub problem- they can eat grass roots, leaving brown stalks above the soil.

3. Puncture Test
Using a screwdriver or butter knife, slide the blade down into both the green and brown areas of your lawn. If the brown areas are hard, while the green areas yield easily, the issue is most likely dry soil. It’s important to check both, however, since soil hardness varies.

4. Check your footprints
Lawns that aren’t getting sufficient water don’t bounce back as quickly. That means that if your footprints remain after you’ve walked across, you’ll definitely need to up the watering for your lawn.

5. Check for runoff
Irrigation is wonderful- if it is watering what it should and not simply wasting water. Ideally, you don’t want your water running off across a driveway or patio. And particularly when it’s extremely hot, high-spray irrigation isn’t as effective, since so much can be lost to immediate evaporation.