Programming for North Georgia comes down to three things: schedule inside the 4 p.m. to 10 a.m. window that applies to publicly supplied water, split run times into shorter cycles with soak periods between so Piedmont clay can absorb rather than shed, and use seasonal adjustment to scale everything as conditions change. Water deeply and less often rather than a little every day.
The watering window comes first
Under the Georgia Water Stewardship Act, landscape watering with publicly supplied water is permitted only between 4 p.m. and 10 a.m., any day of the week. Private wells, reuse water, hand watering and food gardens are exempt, and there is a 30-day allowance for newly installed landscape. Local providers may have additional water waste ordinances, and drought response levels change, so confirm anything account-specific with whoever bills you.
This is the first constraint rather than the last, because on a large system it determines everything else. A twenty-zone property cannot run every zone sequentially for a comfortable run time and finish before 10 a.m. Zones have to be split across programs with staggered start times, and the run times have to be realistic.
Within the window, early morning is better than evening. Overnight and pre-dawn watering means lower evaporation loss and less wind drift than an evening start, and foliage dries as the sun comes up rather than staying wet all night.
Cycle and soak: the clay soil adjustment
Piedmont clay accepts water slowly — more slowly than most irrigation systems apply it. Once the surface is saturated, everything applied after that point runs off along the grade instead of soaking in. On a sloped lot it heads for the low ground and leaves.
So a single long run time produces a predictable result: a few minutes of useful infiltration followed by many minutes of runoff, dry high ground, soggy low ground, and a water bill that reflects all of it.
The fix is to split the run. Instead of one twenty-minute cycle, run three cycles of about seven minutes with half an hour or more between them. The same total volume is applied, but each cycle gets a chance to soak in before the next arrives. This is the single most useful scheduling change available in this region and it costs nothing but a few minutes of programming.
Practically, it is set up either as multiple start times in one program, or with a controller that has a dedicated cycle-and-soak feature. An older controller with one start time per program cannot do it, which is one of the few genuinely good reasons to replace a working unit.
Deep and infrequent beats shallow and daily
Frequent short watering keeps the top inch of soil wet and trains roots to stay there, which produces turf that cannot tolerate any interruption in watering and is more vulnerable to heat and disease.
Less frequent, deeper watering drives moisture further into the profile and encourages deeper rooting, which produces turf that holds up considerably better through a hot Georgia August.
How often depends on the season, the soil, the sun exposure and what is planted, and it is genuinely different per zone — a full-sun front lawn on a slope and a shaded bed under mature canopy have very different needs even though they are on the same system. The most common scheduling error we find is every zone running the same time because that is how it was set up on day one.
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Through the Georgia season
The cleanest way to manage this is seasonal adjustment as a global percentage, which scales every zone proportionally and preserves the relative balance between them that someone worked out originally. Rewriting individual run times each season inevitably loses that balance.
| Period | Adjustment |
|---|---|
| Early spring | System back in service, minimal run times — cool weather and spring rain do most of the work |
| Late spring | Step up gradually as temperatures climb and rainfall becomes less reliable |
| Summer | Peak run times, cycle-and-soak in use, and cycles skipped after real rainfall rather than run regardless |
| Late summer | Watch for storms — a week of afternoon thunderstorms should mean the system runs considerably less |
| Autumn | Step down progressively. Watering at summer rates into October is one of the most common sources of waste we see |
| Winter | Off or minimal, with the system shut down and the controller set to off or rain |
Common programming mistakes
That last one is worth fixing today at no cost: write the station numbers and what each one waters inside the controller door. It makes every future adjustment and every future repair faster.
- Two programs with overlapping start times, so everything gets watered twice. This is invisible except on the bill.
- Multiple start times in one program left in place by accident, producing the same effect.
- Seasonal adjustment left at 100 percent all year.
- A rain sensor bypass switch left on after someone tested it, so the sensor does nothing.
- Every zone on the same run time regardless of sun, slope, soil and plant type.
- Rotors and spray heads on the same zone. They apply water at very different rates, so no single run time can suit both — this is a zoning fault that programming cannot fix.
- Start times that push a long cycle past 10 a.m., so the controller gets cut off mid-program.
- No record of what each station operates, so nobody can safely change anything later.
Related answers
- How Often Should I Water My Lawn in North Georgia?Water deeply and less often rather than a little every day. Fewer, longer sessions drive moisture into the soil profile and encourage deeper rooting;…
- Why Won’t My Sprinkler Controller Advance Through the Zones?A controller that will not step through its zones properly is more often misprogrammed than broken. Zones set to zero run time are skipped silently,…
- Are Smart Irrigation Controllers Worth It?A smart irrigation controller is worth it on a system that is hydraulically sound, on a property where the schedule would otherwise never get…
- Why Do I Have Dry Spots Even Though My Sprinklers Run?Dry spots on a system that appears to be running normally are usually a coverage problem rather than a water-quantity problem. Sprinkler zones are…
- What Are the Watering Restrictions in Georgia?Under the Georgia Water Stewardship Act, landscape watering with publicly supplied water is permitted only between 4 p.m. and 10 a.m., any day of the…
Services that fix this
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Weather-based watering that adjusts itself — set up properly for Georgia clay and the legal watering window.
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Irrigation Medics repairs irrigation systems across Hall County and the Lake Lanier communities, the Gwinnett corridor through Duluth, Suwanee and Buford, and North Fulton and Forsyth — Johns Creek, Alpharetta, Milton, Roswell and Cumming. Same rates throughout. See the service area.