Fertilizing your lawn is essential for its health and beauty while boosting its ability to withstand stress. However, fertilizing mistakes are both common and costly. Let’s see how to avoid common fertilizer mistakes so your lawn will thrive.
The Most Common Fertilizing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
To learn how to avoid common fertilizer mistakes, you need to understand the essentials of effective fertilizing. Fertilizing your lawn properly relies on providing the correct amounts of the right nutrients at the proper time and in the appropriate fashion. Each of these points is critical, and when one is missed, you end up with fertilizing mistakes on your lawn like these:
Applying the Wrong Nutrients
One of the most common fertilizing mistakes people make is using the wrong type of fertilizer. Your lawn needs specific macronutrients and micronutrients in precise amounts and balance. Before selecting a fertilizer, do a soil test to learn what nutrition your lawn needs. Otherwise, you risk causing a nutrient imbalance, which leads to discolored grass, slow growth, and increased susceptibility to lawn disease.
Too Much Fertilizer
Another common error to avoid is applying too much fertilizer. Your lawn may need nitrogen or iron, but too much of what it needs can be worse than not enough. Too much fertilizer can burn your lawn. This occurs when excess salts in the fertilizer draw the moisture from the cells in your grass. Your lawn yellows then browns and can appear scorched, with stunted growth and dying patches.
Fertilizing New Grass Too Soon
Once you seed a new lawn or lay down sod, you’re eager to give it all the help it needs to thrive. But fertilizing new grass too soon is another fertilizing mistake. Freshly sprouting grass or sod needs time to become well-established with healthy roots before it can safely process most lawn fertilizers. Otherwise, the tender shoots and roots can be easily damaged or burned, leading to your lawn withering.
A specially formulated starter fertilizer is the only safe way to feed a new lawn.
Fertilizing at the Wrong Time
It is critical to fertilize your lawn when your grass is “wide awake” and actively growing so it can immediately make productive use of the nutrients you provide. Fertilizing when your lawn is dormant risks burning the roots and top growth. But fertilizing when your grass is just coming out of dormancy risks producing fast top growth unsupported by sufficient root structure.
So when is the right time to fertilize your lawn? It depends on the type of grass you have and in which climate zone you live.
There are two primary types of turfgrass: cool-season and warm-season, named according to when they produce active growth. Cool-season grasses are best suited to northern climates and actively grow in the cooler seasons of spring and fall. Warm-season grasses thrive in southern climes and produce active top growth during the summer.
Ideally, you should fertilize cool-season grasses in early fall; early spring is also an option. For warm-season turfgrass, fertilize in late spring or early summer.
Fertilizing Without Preparing the Lawn
Another common error is just feeding without preparing your lawn for the nutrients. This can cause all the nutrients to go straight to the weeds, with your lawn getting scant benefits. To avoid this common fertilizer mistake, take the following steps before feeding:
- Mow the lawn and manually pull any weeds.
- Test and adjust your soil pH to the ideal level for your turfgrass type.
- If necessary, dethatch the lawn.
- If the soil is badly compacted, aerate the lawn.
- Water the lawn one or two days before fertilizing.
This preparation ensures your grass is in the right condition to make optimal use of the nutrients when you fertilize.
Failing to Water After Fertilizing
This fertilizing mistake is an easy one to correct, and it is critical to do so. If the fertilizer just sits on the grass blades, the nutrients can’t get to the roots and benefit your lawn. The nutrients can even burn the blades instead of feeding the roots. You may see signs of scorching or fertilizer burn in your lawn.
Uneven Application
Applying fertilizer unevenly can lead to patches of grass that are under-fertilized beside patches that are over-fertilized. The lawn can develop uneven coloring in stripes or patches, depending upon how you applied the fertilizer. Using the right applicator for your fertilizer type is how you avoid this common fertilizer mistake. Opt for a sprayer for liquids and a broadcast spreader for granular fertilizers. Then, take great care to apply the fertilizer evenly without overlap.
How to Fix Fertilizer Burn on Grass
Ideally, having learned how to avoid common fertilizing mistakes, you won’t need to know how to fix fertilizer burn on your grass! It results from leaving the fertilizer on your grass for too long before rinsing it off the grass leaves and watering it in. Just because you see burned grass doesn’t mean the damage is finished. It’s essential to fix the situation before greater damage to the roots and soil occurs.
- Generously water the discolored grass every morning for a week. This helps wash the fertilizer off the leaves and into the soil, preventing the salts from remaining too concentrated in the soil.
- After a week of rinsing, check the damaged grass. If it is yellow but not brown or brittle, it should recover in time. Browned or dried-out grass should be aerated and then re-seeded.
- Rake up or trim away dead grass to encourage fresh new growth.
How Long Can Fertilizer Sit on Lawn Before Watering?
So, if leaving the fertilizer on the grass too long causes it to burn the lawn, the next question is obvious. How long can fertilizer sit on a lawn before watering? Generally, fertilizer can safely remain on the grass for up to 24 hours before being watered in, either by rainfall or irrigation. In hot and dry weather, water within a few hours to avoid burning the lawn.
When to Call in the Professionals for Lawn Fertilization
The easiest way to avoid common fertilizer mistakes is to entrust the job to Lawn Pride®. Our lawn care service experts give your grass the right nutrients in the right amounts at the right time. We do the job right the first time since that’s what you and your lawn deserve. You can bank on it because the Neighborly Done Right Promise™ backs everything we do.
Our grass experts are happy to help you care for your own lawn. Our expert lawn care tips provide invaluable insights into how to grow a healthy lawn. If you have any questions, contact us. We’re here to help!
But if you’re tired of the guesswork, the fertilizing mistakes, and the backaches, we’re ready to take over for you with our Lawn Care Program. We’ll make your lawn the pride of the neighborhood. To get started, request your free estimate today.
This article is intended for general guidance only and may not apply to every situation. You are responsible for determining the proper course of action for your property and your situation. Lawn Pride is not responsible for any damages that occur as a result of any advice or guidance derived from blog content. For the most accurate guidance, contact an independently owned and operated Lawn Pride for more information and a professional on-site assessment.