Who doesn’t love a thick, inexperienced, luscious garden? Fertilizing your garden the correct quantity on the proper instances can assist your garden develop thick and wholesome to choke out weeds and create a good looking out of doors area for the entire household.
But it surely’s not at all times straightforward to know when to fertilize your grass. It will depend on what sort of grass you’ve got, as a result of it’s a must to fertilize when the grass is in its development interval, not when it’s dormant.
It’s a must to unfold fertilizer granules fastidiously, and water them in in order that they don’t burn the grass. Observe these directions to present your garden the fertilizer it wants on the proper time.
Decide What Kind of Grass You Have
There are two fundamental sorts of grasses grown in American lawns: cool season grasses and heat season grasses. Cool season grasses, like Kentucky bluegrass, superb and tall fescues, and ryegrass, like chilly climate and can go dormant throughout peak summer season temperatures. Cool season grasses develop through the spring and fall and received’t go brown through the winter.
Heat season grasses, like kikuyu, zoysia, Bermuda, St. Augustine, and centipede grasses, like heat climate and have their development interval through the peak of summer season. They’ll lie dormant through the cooler temperatures of fall and spring, and go brown through the winter.
You may determine whether or not you’ve got a cool or heat season grass by listening to the instances of yr when it’s truly rising. It’s good to apply fertilizer to your garden whereas the garden is in a development interval.
For cool season grasses, this implies making use of the grass within the early spring when the soil temperature has simply reached 55 levels Fahrenheit for just a few days (a superb signal that it’s time to fertilize cool season grasses is that the lilacs have began to bloom).
You may apply a second spherical of fertilizer to chill season grasses within the fall, after temperatures have dropped considerably however earlier than the primary frost. For heat season grasses, apply fertilizer within the late spring or early summer season, when the air temperature has reached not less than 80 levels Fahrenheit.
As soon as the most popular summer season temperatures have handed, you may apply a second spherical of fertilizer to heat season grasses.
Unfold Your Fertilizer Rigorously
When fertilizing your personal garden, it’s finest to make use of fertilizer granules as a result of it’s simpler to unfold them evenly – and it’s necessary to unfold fertilizer evenly in order that your entire grass will get the vitamins it wants and also you don’t do any injury.
Broadcast spreaders are the very best seed and fertilizer spreaders to make use of when fertilizing your garden. Park the spreader in your driveway or on a tarp to fill it up – be sure to shut the hopper first. Sweep up any spilled fertilizer, to keep away from pointless air pollution and lower your expenses.
Unfold fertilizer across the perimeter of your yard first, then refill the center, working in parallel rows. Unfold fertilizer evenly by following your tire tracks as you begin a brand new row. When you’ve crammed in the midst of the yard, return and fill it once more, working perpendicular to your first set of rows.
Water Your Fertilizer in
When you’ve unfold your fertilizer, water it in. You wish to water sufficient to scrub the fertilizer off the grass blades and dissolve it into the soil. Don’t water an excessive amount of, or your fertilizer will run off and be wasted.
Don’t fertilize proper earlier than or after a rainstorm, both, should you can assist it. In case you fertilize earlier than a rainstorm, it’ll wash your fertilizer away.
In case you fertilize proper after, you’re not going to have the ability to water it successfully – the soil shall be too saturated and your fertilizer will simply run off. Wait just a few days after a giant storm earlier than fertilizing.
Use the Proper Form of Fertilizer for Beginning Grass Seed
In case you’re fertilizing grass that’s already rising, purchase a 20-5-10 fertilizer that can present the proper mixture of vitamins for leaf improvement and root development.
In case you’re seeding your yard, you’ll desire a fertilizer with a extra even ratio of phosphorus to nitrogen. Nitrogen helps leaf development whereas phosphorus stimulates root development and helps defend the plant from illness.
Use a starter fertilizer with a 1:1 ratio of nitrogen to phosphorus. Unfold your starter fertilizer over the naked soil and water it in earlier than spreading your grass seed.
Fertilizing your garden correctly on the proper instances of the yr can preserve it wholesome, robust, and inexperienced – and what extra may you need from a garden, anyway?