This watering pan test could help you figure out how much water your lawn needs – here's how it works

Large grass lawn in garden in front of house. Flowering plants growing in garden border.

I’m all for a clever watering hack, but this one is slightly different: the watering pan test.

In a nutshell, it’s a way of figuring out how often to water your garden in hot weather – you fill up a pan with water, put it on your lawn, and leave it for a week. The amount of water lost through evaporation can tell you a lot about the amount of water being lost from the soil, and from there, you can work out how much water your lawn needs.