Are you looking for tips on how to create a lush, green lawn for this summer? Many people think that watering is the most important step in creating a perfect lawn. While water is of course important, fertilizing is the first step to take to get started!
You can’t maintain a gorgeous lawn without creating healthy soil for it to grow in. But, if you’re like most people, you’re thinking, What does fertilizer do? Read on to learn the benefits of fertilizer and how often you should fertilize your lawn.
What Does Fertilizer Do?
Fertilizer is essential for your lawn’s health. It lets grass develop a strong, deep root system. A solid root system prevents your lawn from dying in harsh drought conditions.
Grass requires a lot of water and nutrients to stay alive. Nutrients like nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus help the grass stay strong, green, and healthy. These nutrients get used up each season, so the lawn requires regularly fertilizing.
These nutrients are also water-soluble. This means with heavy rainfall, water carries the nutrients away from the soil. You feed your lawn by topping up the soil’s nutrients each season.
Does Fertilizer Make Your Lawn Green?
All fertilizers have a different makeup of essential nutrients that help the grass in different ways. The nutrient that helps keep the grass that lush color of green is nitrogen. To enhance the color of your lawn, look for a fertilizer that has a higher ratio of nitrogen than the other macronutrients.
Nitrogen helps the plant develop more chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is essential for photosynthesis and also reflects green UV light waves. This means the more chlorophyll in the grass, the greener it appears to our eye!
How To Fertilize A Lawn
Fertilizing a law requires handling nutrient chemicals. Although these are naturally occurring chemicals, they must get handled with caution. Hire a professional company like https://whenappearancematters.com/ for safe lawn fertilizing.
There are a few steps to feeding your lawn:
- Testing the Lawn
It’s important to get the soil tested before applying fertilizer because providing too much of one type of nutrient might cause accidental damage to the grass. Testing the soil requires randomly collecting samples across the lawn. The samples are mixed and tested for the nutrient makeup.
This determines which kind of fertilizer your lawn needs for optimum health.
- Follow Fertilizer Instructions
Once the type of fertilizer your lawn needs is determined, be sure to follow the instructions. Adding too much fertilizer or distributing it incorrectly will damage your lawn. Measure your lawn beforehand to calculate the amount of fertilizer required.
- Lawn Aftercare
Because the nutrients in fertilizer are water-soluble, watering the grass after applying fertilizer gets the nutrients to the roots. The particular type of fertilizer will have specific instructions on the amount of water needed after application. Regularly water and feed your lawn to keep it healthy throughout the year.
How often you should fertilize your lawn depends on the regular conditions. Areas of drought or high rainfall require topping up the nutrients more regularly. Typically, it’s recommended to fertilize at least once every season.
Easy Lawn Care Tips
Now you have the answer to the question, What does fertilizer do? These tips should get you started on having the lawn of your dreams.
Remember that grass is a living thing that requires both water and food. Fertilizer provides the food that it needs to thrive. For more helpful information on home and lawn care, check out the other articles on our site.
