Wondering how much water your lawn needs in this heat wave? We were (especially after opening our own water bills this month!) and we reached out to our favorite, local, East Dallas gardening expert for her recommendations!

"Your lawn needs between 5 and 10 minutes of watering twice a week at the most to remain healthy, says Courtney Esposito of Bee Contained, "Overwatering your lawn is not only wasteful to your pocketbook it is wasteful to our most precious resource."

The City of Dallas passed a Water Conservation ordinance in 2012 which limits "non-essential" watering to twice a week. This ordinance is in effect starting April 1 and runs through October 31st. Since the water conservation program began, Dallas has decreased the number of gallons used per capita/per day by 22% - a number that really makes an impact when you think about how much Dallas is expected to grow (and how much water we will be using) over the next 10-20 years! Variances may be given for new landscaping that needs additional watering to take hold and residents are permitted to use soaker hoses and hand watering at their discretion.

Our friends at The Richards Group just launched their third iteration of the Water Is Awesome Campaign for the City of Dallas and the Tarrant Regional Water District. The goal of this year was to get residents to sign up for weekly watering advice. The watering advice uses weather stations from all across Dallas/Fort Worth to give you a precise amount of watering for your zip code. To sign up go here.

How do you conserve water when it's this hot outside - we want to know! Send us your own tips and tricks.