I watched my neighbor's dead lawn turn green in 12 days and the only thing he changed was his watering schedule
Dude was watering 10 minutes every single evening, and his grass stayed brown all summer while mine looked fine. He switched to 35 minutes twice a week, super early around 5am, and by day 12 the difference was nuts. Turns out shallow daily watering makes weak roots that dry out fast, deep soakings push them down where the water actually stays. He showed me his water bill too, 22 bucks lower than July. Anybody here messed with their sprinkler timing and seen a big change, or am I overthinking it?
The "35 minutes twice a week" thing is real. My buddy did almost the same switch last year after his lawn looked awful all summer. He was doing the quick nightly sprinkle too and could not figure out why it kept dying on him. Once he went to deep soakings a couple times a week, the grass came back way thicker and his crabgrass problem even eased up some. Shallow watering just trains the roots to sit right at the surface where the sun bakes them dry. Your neighbor's water bill dropping makes sense too, since he is not running the sprinkler every single day anymore.