Questions about watering landscape during drought and hot weather [View all]

In the part of the country where I live, we've had two years of excessive heat and drought, and we're running way behind on rainfall again this year, heading into the hot summer months.

I have almost an acre, with about 160 mature trees, mostly oaks. I bought my house last year and it had been sitting empty for several years. I have an automatic sprinkler system that covers the entire yard, but it was off most of last summer due to the city installing new water lines, streets, and improving drainage in the neighborhood. The city relocated sprinklers that were near the street to install a drainage ditch, and in the process damaged several of the water lines for the sprinkler system underground. The owner of the house turned the sprinklers off, since they weren't working properly.

Because of the heat and lack of water, several of the big trees died last summer and a lot of the grass did as well. My yard is mostly fescue, due to the shade of the trees, although a few areas have bermuda grass as they have sun most of the day.

This spring, I put down seed and have had less than spectacular results. Some of it grew, but some of it didn't. I've been watering in small amounts frequently to keep the new seed moist. Now, it is too hot and dry to put down seed and I want to water for longer periods of time, less frequently to allow the water to penetrate down into the soil and encourage deep root growth.

Do I just change the watering cycles from short cycles daily to longer cycles twice a week? Or do I need to "ramp up" by watering slightly longer, but fewer days a week?

The ground is DRY. I can water for an hour, which puts down about 1/4th of an inch of water, and within an hour or two the soil looks like it hasn't been watered in weeks.

I also have clay soil, so I have to water the foundation of my house. I have mostly boxwood and azaleas around the house. In order to keep the soil around the foundation evenly moist, it must be watered at least daily for a few minutes, and will likely need to be watered twice a day or possibly more as the heat and lack of rain continue over the next couple of months.

I know boxwood and azaleas don't like to sit in water, and that they have shallow roots. I hope that I won't be giving them too much water, but it will be necessary to prevent foundation damage to the house. Relocating the boxwood and azaleas isn't an option, as there are a LOT of them and the cost would be prohibitive at this point.

I would appreciate any advice, as it seems like I'm putting down a lot of water, and it's not doing much good.