Less Fertilizer Less Often for a Beautiful Lawn

You really don’t need to apply as much lawn fertilizer as most fertilizer salespeople tell you, nor as frequently. The usual 3- or 4-step programs are costly and require a lot of effort on your part. Plus grasses can’t absorb the massive doses of rapid-release fertilizer applied and much of it ends up polluting waterways. Instead, consider the idea that single application of slow-release fertilizer, preferably organic, in the spring or fall, can give the lawn all the minerals it needs for healthy, season-long growth.

And if you leave grass clippings on the lawn after you mow rather than raking them up, an age-old technique with a new name, grasscycling, that also fertilizes the lawn. The clippings simply decompose where they lie, returning their minerals to the soil where they “feed” the lawn. So, you’ve already given the turf at least half of the minerals it needs. That way, when you do apply your “1-Step Fertilizer,” you can cut the application rate by half, leaving even more cash in your pocket!

Note too that, since these slow-release fertilizers are liberated slowly, grasses absorb the minerals as they are released, so there is no risk of polluting the water table and streams with excess fertilizer.

Less fertilizer, fewer applications and a healthy, green, environmentally friendly lawn? What’s stopping you?