When caring for your lawn and setting up your lawn sprinkler system, you may wonder if hard or soft water will impact your lawn care.
It’s important to know the differences between hard water and soft water.
When rainwater first hits the ground, it is still considered soft. Once it comes into contact with the earth, it becomes hard as it absorbs minerals like chalk, lime, calcium and magnesium. This is why most of the water in the U.S. is hard water that comes from the ground. As the water moves through the ground, it become purified by natural means.
Soft water is usually collected before it hits the earth. This can be water from rivers and lakes. It does not contain the minerals of hard water.
Hard water can be “softened”. Water softeners often use salt, in the form of sodium chloride or potassium chloride, to replace the scale-building materials with sodium or potassium ions.
Water softened with salt obviously contains more sodium, so it may not be the best option for lawn sprinkler systems or any type of lawn watering operation. Over time, salt can build up over the soil surface. This can be more problematic in areas that see little rainfall (the current conditions in California are a good example). The good news is natural rain should help wash away those salty deposits.
