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By the San Antonio Pro Landscape Team
San Antonio is in SAWS Stage 2, the second step of the drought plan that tracks the Edwards Aquifer. Sprinklers run one day a week, in two narrow windows, and the stage holds until the aquifer’s ten-day average sits above the 650-foot trigger long enough for SAWS to step back down. Whether your yard is in Alamo Heights, Stone Oak, Monte Vista, or out toward Helotes, here is exactly what Stage 2 allows in 2026 and how to keep a South Texas lawn presentable on it.
Your Stage 2 watering schedule
- Irrigation systems, sprinklers, and soaker hoses: once a week, only on your designated watering day, and only from 5 to 10 a.m. or 9 p.m. to midnight.
- Drip irrigation and tree bubbler zones: Mondays and Fridays, same hours.
- Hand-held hose: any time, any day. This is the tool that keeps trees, beds, and stressed spots alive between legal waterings.
- Vegetable gardens: the three-day drip allowance on Monday, Wednesday and Friday is a Stage 1 provision. Under Stage 2, drip irrigation is allowed Monday and Friday during watering hours. Until the stage changes, water beds on the drip days above, or by hand any day.
Your designated day is set by your street address; look it up on the SAWS Stage 2 watering-day schedule and program the controller to match. Areas without an address, like medians and neighborhood entryways, water on Wednesday.
What a violation costs now
SAWS enforces the watering rules through its water-waste program, and a documented violation is handled as a charge on the account rather than a trip to court. The current amounts, and whether a first offence can still be worked off with the online course, are set by SAWS and change – confirm them with SAWS rather than budgeting from a figure quoted on any contractor’s website, this one included. Two things do not change: water waste, including runoff and overspray onto pavement, is prohibited at all times, and washing driveways or sidewalks is banned outright. The heavy-use surcharge on single-family accounts above 20,000 gallons a month belongs to Stage 3, so it is not in force today.
Confirmation point 3 before Water Planning: Selection Criteria
One legal watering a week will not establish new sod in a San Antonio summer. Hand watering any day covers small plantings, and SAWS offers a variance process for new landscapes that genuinely need more. If you are planning an install, apply for the variance first and aim for fall, when establishment takes a fraction of the water.
Most lawns here are Bermuda, zoysia, or St. Augustine, and the calendar follows the heat.
- Spring (Mar to May): green-up. Take a clean first cut, apply pre-emergent early, fertilize only after full green-up, and have the irrigation system checked before summer, including a run-time tune so one weekly cycle actually soaks.
- Summer (Jun to Aug): survival season. Mow high to shade roots, water deep in the pre-dawn window on your day, use the hand hose on hot spots and young trees, and expect some browning; a drought-stressed lawn that recovers beats a fined one.
- Fall (Sep to Nov): the rebuild. Fertilize to restore roots, aerate compacted ground, patch thin areas, and do your planting and design work now.
- Winter (Dec to Feb): mostly dormant. Cut watering to occasional deep soaks, prune, and plan any renovation you want green by May.
A yard built for Stage 2
Cycle-and-soak is essential in our shallow, rocky soils: split each zone’s weekly run into two or three shorter cycles so water goes down instead of downhill. Move beds to drip so they ride the twice-a-week track instead of the once-a-week one. And converting the most stubborn turf to native and adapted planting takes it off the schedule entirely; SAWS WaterSaver coupons and rebates regularly offset part of that work.
One day, two windows, drip on Monday and Friday, hand hose whenever. Know your day, keep water off the pavement, lean on fall for anything new, and design the thirstiest corners out of the yard. A stage only lifts once the aquifer has held above its trigger for fifteen days, so plan on these rules for a while – and note that if the aquifer keeps falling, Stage 3 tightens them further rather than loosening them.
If you would like help tuning a controller to Stage 2, adding drip, or planning a lower-water landscape, the San Antonio Pro Landscape Team works with these exact rules every day.
Sources: San Antonio Water System — Stage 2 watering rules and the Edwards Aquifer level. Stage confirmed as Stage 2 on 5 August 2026. Drought stages move with the aquifer, and SAWS publishes the active stage daily – check it there before relying on this schedule.