What Do You Need To Fertilise Your Lawn
Some readily available tools will help you on your way and make the job easier when fertilising your lawn.
- Rake / pitch fork / wheelbarrow
- Possibly a soil test kit if you need to know what nutrients your lawn is lacking .
- Spreader for hand or push application of using a granular fertiliser
- Hose and hose connection if using a liquid fertiliser
- Spray applicator if using a concentrated liquid fertiliser as well as the appropriate Personal Protective gear .
Whats In Your Lawn Fertilizer
Fertilizer for lawns has three key macronutrients to feed your lawn: nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium, or NPK. The proportion of each nutrient is usually marked on the bag with these letters.
Nitrogen is the component that makes your lawn grow, while phosphorous and potassium help strengthen the roots and cell walls of the grass.
The amount of nitrogen you need depends on your soil and grass type. Apply the right amount and youll get healthy green grass. Too heavy on the nitrogen and youll need to mow all the time, and the grass may not be strong or green.
Which Types Of Fertilizer Do Your Lawn Need
It is one of the hardest parts of your fertilizing task to maintain a healthy lawn. But you cant avoid it because it is the most important part. After all, any kind of selection mistake can damage your lawn very badly.
Soil test first:
First of all, you need to test your soil to determine which types of fertilizer your lawn needs. In soil, tests check the pH level of your soil. If the soil pH is under 5.5, the lawn soil is acidic and needs to apply lime to raise the pH to a neutral level. If the soil pH is more than 7, then the lawn soil is alkali, and you need to fertilize with sulfur to lower the pH.
After a well-balanced soil pH level, you need to know which nutrients your lawn soil needs. From soil tests, you can determine the lack of the right type of fertilizer to get the best results. If your soil needs much nitrogen, then it can recommend a 30-0-0 fertilizer.
For soil tests, you can send a few samples, or you can also call a professional services man to come to collect the sample. After that, they test your soil and give you the results of which nutrients your lawn has a shortage of. Then select the right type of fertilizer and apply it to fix the problems.
Identification of your lawn grass and create a fertilization schedule:
How often and when to fertilize?
Schedule for Cool-season grass:
Examples of cool-season grass:
- Annual and perennial fescues
The best fertilizer for cool-season grasses:
Schedule for warm-season grasses:
Example of warm-season grass:
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How To Repair Fertilizer Burned Lawn
How to Repair Burned Grass from Fertilizer. Burned lawns will need a generous amount of water to get back to green. Its important to water your lawn as soon as you spot any brown or yellow patches to prevent further damage. Slowly soak the affected areas every day for about a week to fully flush out the salt.
Fill And Prepare A Lawn Spreader
- Next, check the instructions on your fertilizer bag for the recommended setting to use on your lawn spreader. This determines the amount of fertilizer that will be distributed. The higher the setting, the larger the hole size in the hopper and thus, the more fertilizer spread on the lawn. Adjust the setting on the spreader accordingly.
- Before you fill the spreader with fertilizer, make sure the hopper hole is closed. Fill the hopper on a hard surface, such as a driveway or sidewalk. This will prevent a potential spill from damaging or saturating a spot on your lawn.
- Be careful not to overfill the hopper or the lawn spreader may become hard to maneuver. Your lawn spreader may come with an edging feature to help you avoid dispensing fertilizer onto your driveway, sidewalk or walkway. If so, turn it on before you begin fertilizing that area. Follow all other instructions provided by your manufacturer for operating your lawn spreader.
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Can I Fertilize My Lawn Every Two Weeks
Overfeeding is very bad for your lawn. Fertilizing your lawn every two weeks is like overfeeding. You will not get any benefit from it otherwise it can be damaging the environment. For best results, apply fertilizer once or twice a year, its enough to keep your grass green and healthy. The key is to fertilize during the period when the grasses are growing most.
How Do I Calculate How Much Fertilizer I Need
Fertilizer recommendations for lawns can be confusing to the average homeowner. These instructions are usually given in pounds of nitrogen to be applied per 1,000 square feet. Home gardeners often have difficulty converting these recommendations to the amounts needed for their selected grade of nitrogen fertilizer and their homes lawn size. Luckily, you can use online fertilizer calculators to simplify things.
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How And When To Fertilize Lawn In Hawaii
How and when to fertilize lawn in hawaii? Hawaiian Turfgrass sells both quick release and slow release fertilizers and can determine what type of fertilizer is best for your lawn. It is best to fertilize every 2-3 months with a fertilizer spreader. Apply fertilizer after mowing and water in once applied to turf.
How do I know when to fertilize my lawn? Look for yellow specifically, not dark brown. If your lawn is brown, you may have another problem, such as a fungus. Improperly fertilized grass typically looks uniformly yellow, but it may have some stripes or large patches of discoloration caused by uneven fertilizer application.
What month Should I fertilize lawn? According to Scotts, you should apply lawn fertilizer between February and April when your grass starts to green up and begins to actively grow. Essentially, if it looks like your grass is ready for its first mowing of the season, then its ready for lawn fertilizer.
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Maintenance Of Your Lawn After Fertilization
To fertilize a little less, leave the grass clippings on the turf after mowing. This is a natural way of putting nitrogen back into your soil and the roots.
If you are wondering whether and when to fertilize new grass, you can find out here.
To make this technique even more effective, try a mulching blade on your lawnmower. This cuts the grass into smaller pieces that will more readily start the decomposition process in your compost pile.
If your soil is of a heavy-clay nature, or you have a lot of traffic on the grass, then it may be useful for you to consider some type of manual lawn aeration from time to time, if you have a large lawn area to aerate, then you may need to use a tow behind aerator that can be pulled with your garden tractor.
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How To Fertilize Lawn And Make Healthy Yard In 5 Best Ways
Every garden needs fertilizer regularly, which undergoes an intensive process that removes nutrients from the soil. It keeps your lawn soil in leading shape to feed your garden. Usually, plants need 3 important resource factors to grow perfectly. These are light, moisture, and nutrients. We know that the sun provides light, moisture from rainfall or irrigation, and different nutrients come from fertilizers, compost, or manure.
Lacking nutrients, plants cant grow well, so you need to fertilize your lawn when it is needed. But fertilizer doesnt respond well if it is in poorly drained soil, in the excess shade, or in an area where there is a huge competition of plant roots.
Different Types Of Fertilizer To Be Used:
When you start fertilizing your lawn, you must gather some basic information about different types of fertilizer. Plants or grass can absorb some fertilizer very fast but some others very slowly. According to the nutrients release rates, mainly fertilizer can be classified into two groups. First, Slow-release fertilizer, Second, Fast-release fertilizer.
Slow-release fertilizer:
Slow-release fertilizer mainly acts as a pillar of your lawn care program. These fertilizers can give a delayed and steady supply of nutrients to lawn plants or grass for several weeks. Because of its longevity and practicality plants or lawn grass can absorb nutrients when they need. The slow-releasing fertilizer gives your lawn a longer-lasting result thus, it reduces the risk caused by fertilizer and protects your lawn from burning.
Fast-release fertilizer:
Use a fast-release fertilizer If you want to get a quick result. These are mainly water-soluble, which can release nutrients to your lawn immediately. You can get these in the local markets or lawn care companies. The price of these fertilizers is less than slow-release products. You must be more careful when you use a fast-release fertilizer. Any overdose can burn your whole lawn or damage your lawn grass very severely. You have to apply it a tiny amount and more often and follow the labels instructions carefully.
Can I mix and use slow and fast-release fertilizers?
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When Is It Too Cold To Fertilize
You should not fertilize your lawn when the temperature is too less from 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The primary period of growth for cool-season plants in the spring and fall. At this time the average temperatures stay between 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
To acquire better health, apply fertilizer heavily in the fall and lightly in early spring. For this purpose, slow- or quick-release fertilizer is appropriate, but you have to avoid the time when the temperatures peak up in the summer season when the plants will go dormant. Cool-season plants need only about one KG nitrogen-rich fertilizer per 1,000 square feet in a single year. You can use special winter fertilizers to protect your grass during the cold weather.
Fertilizing Warm Season Grasses
Warm-season grasses grow best when the temperature range between 80 and 95 degrees, which means their window for growth tends to be a lot narrower than their cool-season counterparts.
Plan on fertilizing this kind of lawn once a year in the spring, which will prep your grass for its relatively fast summer growth.
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Synthetic Vs Organic Lawn Fertilizers
As you learn how and when to fertilize a lawn, its important to think about the types of fertilizers available. There is an essential difference between synthetic and organic fertilizers that is worth noting. Oftentimes, the lower cost of synthetic fertilizers may be appealing at first glance, but when you look a little deeper, youll find that the benefits of using an organic fertilizer far outway the chemical option.
Unlike synthetic lawn fertilizers, organic fertilizers are eco-friendly and safe for gardeners, their families, pets, and the environment. Organic fertilizers help to build the soil and contain beneficial soil microbes plus mycorrhizae.
As you peruse the bags of fertilizer on garden center and nursery shelves, each bag has a number sequence on it that shares key information about what the fertilizer supplies by way of nutrients. These numbers refer to the levels of Nitrogen , Phosphorus , and Potassium that it contains. Refer to your soil test results to determine which bag of fertilizer is best for your grass variety.
- Works to correct nutrient imbalances in the soil
- There is no danger of over-usage of nutrients
- Harmful residues do not build-up
- Does not produce pollution from runoff
The Best Time To Fertilize And When To Avoid It
If you’re wondering the best time to fertilize, remember it’s just as important to know when not to do it.
In the Florida panhandle, grasses tend to be more dormant in the winter months. During winter, the grass isnt as able to take in the needed nutrients, so it make sense to avoid applying fertilizers at this time.
Hold off on fertilizing if your area is expecting heavy rains of two or more inches, or a tropical storm is expected in the next 24 hours. You want to make sure the fertilizer has a chance to get into the soil and root systems, not get washed away.
Also, if you just planted new turfgrass, the University of Florida Extension recommends waiting 30 to 60 days before using nitrogen fertilizer. The young roots arent deep enough to really absorb the nutrients, and the soil from the sod farm may already have nutrients in place.
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How Often You Should Apply Fertilizer To Your Lawn
Though fertilizer has its benefits, you dont want to overdo it. A full feeding is recommended at least 5-6 times per year. You want to feed your lawn when its growing most rapidly. However, you should base the frequency on your climate and the type of grass you have. For example, cool season grasses can be fertilized in late spring, but only if necessary.
Warm season grasses, like Bermuda grass, St. Augustine, zoysia, centipede and buffalo grass, should be fertilized in spring. Depending on the amount of water your grass gets, aim to reapply your fertilizer every 6-8 weeks. Keep a watchful eye on your grass. If it looks thick and green, you can probably skip the feeding. If its starting to look brown or black, give your lawn some TLC.
What Happens If I Over
Along with fertilize burn, over-fertilizing can cause damage to your turfs root structure, as well. Some fertilizers contain high levels of nitrogen, which if absorbed in large amounts can become harmful. What mainly causes the dreaded burn, however, is an abundant accumulation of soluble salts.
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What Grass Is In Your Lawn
In Florida, you will find the following grasses in your lawn:
Bahia an all-purpose grass, with a lower risk of disease and insect problems. It is often used in pastures for beef consumption.
Bermuda also known as couch grass, is drought-resistant and makes a good turf. It is one of the most common lawn grass types.
Centipede a low-maintenance, heat tolerant grass with low nutrient requirements. Grows from the spring into the hot summer months.
St. Augustine Grows best in tropical climates, often seen on shorelines where there is ample moisture.
Zoysia hardy grass, stands high-heat and drought conditions. Low maintenance. Suitable for southern states.
Knowing what types of grass grow in your yard is essential to a healthy fertilization. As nutrient needs vary between types of different grasses, it pays to do your research.
Where Fertilizer Fits Into Your Grass Care Cycle
Like any other plant, grass makes its own food from sunlight and water. In contrast to the plant food that you might add to potted plants, fertilizer is really meant to improve the soil.
Whether youre using natural or synthetic, the reason you fertilize your lawn is to add micronutrients that improve the soil quality and help the grass grow.
When and Where Plant Get Their Essential Nutrients
Plants tend to grow in cycles, and grasses are no different. When your lawn is in a growing phase, the grass draws essential minerals like fertilizer, potassium, and phosphate from the soil. Although sunlight and water are the basic ingredients needed for grass growth, these minerals help produce structural and functional components that keep them healthy and strong.
When Fertilizer Comes In
Before or during the next growing cycle, which may not be until the next year, youll need to add another round of fertilizer to replenish the minerals that have been removed from the soil. Thats why many species of grasses dont need frequent fertilization.
Overfertilizing is wasting money on excessive minerals for your lawn and may risk damaging it, which well go over later. First, to decide exactly when and how often to fertilize your lawn, you need to identify what type of grass it has.
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Your First Fertilizer Application Should Take Place In Early Spring
Fertilize your lawn in early spring when your grass first begins to grow. In northeast Ohio, this is typically between March and April when temperatures start consistently staying near 50 degrees. Also consider a weed control application at the same time. Getting ahead of weeds before they germinate can help prevent them from taking over your lawn. A second application of both products should be used in late spring before it gets too hot.
Know What Type Of Grass Is On Your Lawn
To fertilize your lawn properly, you need to know if you have warm or cool-season grass growing on your lawn. Which category a species of grass belongs to depends on its growing cycle. Some grasses are dormant during the fall, spring, and winter months.
These are cool-season grasses, which include:
- Tall fescue
- Perennial ryegrass
- Kentucky bluegrass
These species are most common in regions that experience large fluctuations in temperature. In the US, that means roughly the upper two-thirds of the country. In the middle, theres a transition zone where both types are common. Warm-season grasses, which grow actively during the summer and early fall, are most common in the southern half.
- Centipede grass
- Zoysia grass
Whatever overall type you have growing on your lawn, your grass is likely a blend of two or more species chosen based on whats right for your area, whether thats excessive shade, sun, or foot traffic.
So, assuming you have the right grass for your situation, you can plan your fertilizing schedule around what type of grass you have.
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