In this section of files on lawn care we give you all you need to know to understand fertilizing your lawn.
The point we want to make here is that in our view most yardeners mistakingly assume that you must fertilize your lawn three or four times a year to keep it healthy, year in and year out -- forever!!. That is a bad assumption.
If your soil is in poor condition and your lawn is struggling a bit, then it is true that you must apply two or three applications of a slow release fertilizer for a year or two. However, if in that same two years you have begun improving your soil under the turf, the need for putting fertilizer on your lawn is reduced.
Here is a goal for fertilizing to consider: For the next two years you will fertilize two or three times a year with a slow release lawn fertilizer. Then in the third year you will drop to one or two applications. In the fourth year you begin fertilizing only once a year, and that will be in the fall. After five or six years of improving the soil under your turf, you can seriously consider adding no fertilizer to your lawn at all. If the soil has been improved sufficiently, your grass is getting all fertilizer needed from the grass clippings, the earthworms, and the nitrogen fixing soil bacteria.
It is definitely possible to have the best looking lawn in the neighborhood and not use any fertilizer at all.
How's that for an attractive prospect???
