Each year the typical American home uses 270,000 gallons of water. That's equal to about 5 average swimming pools. A lawn soaks up more water per square foot then any other area in your garden.

Here are a few tips for reducing watering cost, inceasing effectiveness and SAVING MONEY!!!

1. The wise way to keep your lawn green during summer is to aerate the soil, feed but don't over fertilise it, and water it only twice a week to toughen the grass and encourage its roots to spread deeper.
2. When mowing, don't cut the grass shorter than 2 inches. If you do, the grass won't have enough leaf area to protect itself from the burning effects of the sun. Also, sharpening your lawn mower blade is important.
3. A forgotten sprinkler can waste over 1,000 gallons of water per hour! Try installing a tap timer to ensure you don't overwater. And choose a sprinkler that produces big drops rather than a fine mist, which is easily affected by the wind. Water only enough to give your garden a good soaking.
4. Get a small plastic butter container, make a mark 1/2 inch from the bottom of the container and place the container on your lawn and then turn on the sprinkler. When the water hits the 1/2 inch mark, your lawn has had enough! Don't forget to adjust your timer accordingly to reflext the time it took to fill the container.
5. Watering your garden during the heat of the day is wasteful because much of the water will evaporate before it even reaches the roots. In fact, watering the leaves at this time can actually damage them.
6. Water your garden in the cool of the morning or early evening, when your plants can get the maximum benefit from the water you give them. Frequent watering makes your plants shallow rooted and more dependent on you for survival. Avoid watering a night as this foster fungus growth.
7. Water your garden less often, but more thoroughly. This encourages your plants to extend their roots deeper, making them hardier, and less thirsty.
8. Installing micro sprays or soaker hose for annuals and ferns will ensure that water is efficiently controlled at a rate the soil can absorb, avoiding wasteful water runoff
9. Plant windbreaks to reduce the drying effect of the wind. Group plants with similar watering needs. Keep lawns to a minimum.
10. Using your hose to sweep your driveway/footpath wastes more than 1,000 gallons of water per hour! Use your broom. It's quicker, more efficient and friendlier to the environment because you can add the rubbish to your compost heap.
11. Capture rainwater to use for incidental watering.
12. If you don't have a compost heap, start one with lawn clippings, leaves, garden rubbish and food scraps. As you keep adding to it, the mulch that forms can be used to save up to 73 percent of the water lost by evaporation in your garden.
13. When washing your car, limit the use of your hose to a quick spray at the beginning, to loosen the dirt and grime, and at the end to rinse off the soapy water. You'll save around 400 gallons per wash. Even better, wash your car on the lawn and water it at the same time, just make sure to use environmental friendly cleaners. If you wash your car once a month and leave the hose running throughout, you'd use 1,000 gallons of water per hour. That's 12,000 gallons per year.

This Guide Provided by Dean A. Black - For more information about Dean, click here.

Dean is a Master Gardener and an eBay Trading Assistant

He is the owner of IndyeBay, Online Consignment Services