Many Central Texans have given up trying to keep their lawns green in the middle of this drought, but experts say watering your yard now can pay off down the road in ways you might not expect.

William Holman says an acre of grass is too much grass to keep green, and he's decided it's too hard and too expensive to water his grass during this year's drought.

"You might as well let it go natural and only mow it once every two months," he said. "It's economics, and at 81, do you want to mow the lawn all the time? There are other things to do, aren't there?"

Horticulturist Skip Richter says not watering may bring on more problems than a brown lawn. He says not watering at all makes lawns susceptible to weeds and diseases such as "take all patch."

"If it doesn't rain for 2 months, and it's 100 degrees, everything needs some help. Next spring you'll be seeing the results of the stress from this summer," Richter said. "If you lawn goes into fall and it's stressed, 'take all' is likely to infect during the cooler, rainy days of fall, and then next spring you'll see continuing die back."

Richter says offering newly planted trees a soaking watering every few weeks also pays off.

"If it were an umbrella, where would the drip line be? That's the area we focus our watering for the benefit of the trees," he said.

Holman -- who doesn't water his lawn -- agrees. The only things he waters these days are his new oaks.

"Water those every week and you deep soak them. You don't want to lose those beautiful oaks," he said.

But beware of overwatering. It's better for your yard to get a deep soaking once a week than to get to get a little water every couple of days.