Watering Restrictions for Polk County
(except for the northeast section of Polk County)
- As you may or may not know, the Southwest Florida Water Management District has imposed new water restrictions as of January 9th, 2007. Lawn watering has been reduced to one day per week.
- The watering schedule is as follows:
If your address (house number) ends in...
...0 or 1, water only on Monday
...2 or 3, water on Tuesday
...4 or 5, water on Wednesday
...6 or 7, water on Thursday
...8 or 9, water on Friday (also includes areas without a
discernable address) - Lawn watering must be accomplished before 8:00 a.m. and after 6:00 p.m. This is a change.
- Low volume irrigation may be used on non-lawn areas any day of the week, but must adhere to the before 10:00 a.m. and after 4:00 p.m. times.
- New plant material including turf may be watered on any day for up to 60 days after installation.
- Hot spots in lawns may be watered on restricted days with a hand held hose. Someone must be holding the hose and there must be some sort of cut-off device on the hose.
- Lawn chemicals such as fertilizer, insecticides, herbicides, etc. may be watered in on restricted days with no more than 1/4 inch of irrigation water. However, it is recommended that the chemicals be applied and watered in on non-restricted days, if a normal irrigation event is not planned. Do not water-in chemicals with the full recommended irrigation rate of 3/4 inch.
- State of Florida law requires rain sensors be placed on all new automatic irrigation systems installed after May 1st 1991.
- Irrigations systems may be operated on restricted days for maintenance and/or calibration purposes. The run time should not exceed 10 minutes.
- There are no changes in the restrictions for recycled water.
- For residences in the Northeast Regional Utility Area of Polk County, new restrictions are in place as of April 12th, 2004. Essentially, the regulations allow lawn and landscape watering with potable water only one day per week and two days per week with recycled water. Check the Polk County Web site for details.
When watering, remember that central Florida sandy soils require from 1/2 to 3/4 inch of water to wet the root zone. Any less amount of water will encourage root growth too close to the surface, and any more irrigation will wet beyond the root zone and carry nutrients out of reach of the roots and into the aquifer.
If you have an automatic sprinkler system, learn how to set the system manually. Inspect the system for malfunctioning parts on a regular basis. Use coffee cans or some other smooth sided container to determine the output and coverage of the system. You cannot determine the coverage of the system with the naked eye.
