First Coast Outdoor Care
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By the Jacksonville Pro Landscape Team
Jacksonville is under the St. Johns River Water Management District’s Phase III Extreme Water Shortage order, the tightest irrigation rules Northeast Florida has seen in years. After a long stretch of below-average rainfall, lawn watering across Duval County is down to one day a week, and JEA has applied the schedule to all of its water customers, reclaimed included. Whether you are in Riverside, San Marco, Mandarin, Ortega, or out on the Southside, here is what is legal in 2026 and how to keep a North Florida lawn healthy on it.
Your Jacksonville watering day
Under the district’s current order (2026-017), the schedule is simple:
- Odd-numbered street address, or no street address: Saturday
- Even-numbered street address: Sunday
One day, once a week. Watering is prohibited between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., so your window is early morning or evening on your day. There is also a volume cap: no more than three-quarters of an inch of water per zone, and no zone running longer than an hour. If you are not sure what your system puts out, a simple catch-cup test tells you in twenty minutes, and it is the difference between a legal deep watering and an accidental violation.
Why the weekend schedule matters
The odd-Saturday, even-Sunday split is the district’s Phase III pattern, and it is enforced at the utility level. JEA confirmed the once-a-week schedule applies to every customer class, including properties irrigating with reclaimed water that normally enjoys looser rules. Set the controller once, on the right day and inside the legal hours, and you are done arguing with it.
What still runs on other days
Low-volume irrigation is the release valve. Drip and micro-irrigation for beds, shrubs, and trees, and hand watering with a hose, remain workable ways to carry the parts of the landscape that are not turf between weekly waterings. Established trees and beds on drip barely notice Phase III. Big open lawns notice it a lot, which is exactly the point.
New sod and plantings
A once-a-week schedule will not establish new St. Augustine in a Florida summer. The district’s orders make tighter provision for new landscapes on a declining establishment schedule, so if you have an install planned, check the current allowance before laying sod and lean toward fall timing, when establishment demand drops sharply.
2026 Jacksonville lawn care calendar
Jacksonville lawns are mostly St. Augustine with some Bahia and zoysia, and our Atlantic-side climate sets the rhythm.
- Spring (Mar to May): the dry season, and under Phase III the hardest months. Mow St. Augustine high, 3.5 to 4 inches, water deep on your weekend day, and hold heavy feeding until rains return.
- Summer (Jun to Sep): afternoon storms do most of the watering. Keep the rain shutoff working, watch for chinch bugs during dry gaps, and mow often enough that you never remove more than a third of the blade.
- Fall (Oct to Nov): recovery season. Patch thin spots, fertilize while the soil is warm, and take on planting and design projects.
- Winter (Dec to Feb): growth crawls and water needs drop to almost nothing. One deep soak on your day when the weather has been dry is plenty.
A lawn built for one-day watering
Sandy Duval County soil drains fast, so cycle-and-soak pays here: split your single watering into two shorter runs so it holds in the root zone. Efficient nozzles and a tuned system stretch the one-hour-per-zone cap further. And moving beds, trees, and the awkward strips onto drip takes them off the weekend schedule entirely.
The bottom line for 2026
Odd waters Saturday, even waters Sunday, never between 8 and 6, never more than three-quarters of an inch. Keep the controller honest, lean on drip and hand watering for everything that is not grass, and let the summer storms carry the load they always have. The district revisits its orders as conditions change, so check before you assume the rules have eased.
If you would like help dialing a system into the one-day schedule, fixing coverage, or shifting beds to drip, the Jacksonville Pro Landscape Team works with these exact rules every day.
Rules current as of July 2026 under SJRWMD Order 2026-017. Restrictions change with conditions; confirm the active phase at sjrwmd.com and jea.com before relying on this schedule.