As you may have heard we are now in stage 2 Water Restrictions here in San Antonio as of 6/12/18. This is most certainly NOT a death sentence for your new or established landscape. In fact, if you water mindfully, your lawn and landscape will not hardly notice the summer season and new watering requirements. So under Stage 2 Watering Restrictions, you can water only once a week. See graphic below for how to determine when you can water.
So here is the trick. Water as much as you can on your allotted day. This means if you can water on Wednesdays, then water as much as you can on that day. The idea is to really saturate the lawn, bedding plants and trees as much as possible during the windows of opportunity; which in this case is in the mornings from 7a-11a and again in the evening from 7p-11p. YOU NEED TO WATER BOTH IN THE MORNING AND AFTERNOON. Yup, that's the trick. If you have a standard size yard then you could water through all of your sprinkler zones in the morning AND the evening on your watering day. With spray heads this means watering about 25-35 minutes in the morning and 25-30 minutes in the evening on all zones. For rotary zones, you will likely be watering 35-45 minutes in both the morning and evenings. If you have drip lawn and/or beds then you will want to water for 1 hour to 1.5 hours per zone, twice on your day. You do not want water to run down the street of course but if the beds and lawn are thirty enough, they will absorb the water applied.
A little gold nugget tip about drip irrigation is through Stage 2 Water Restrictions, you can still drip ANY DAY, as long as it is between 7a-11a and 7p-11p. This means the bedding plants and trees will be just fine as long as you watering properly. Remember, it is still possible to over water plants, even in the summer, so it is best to stick to 3 day a week watering to allow the ground to dry out a bit between watering.