Fertilising Your Lawn

To keep your lawn healthy, it is important to keep it well maintained and well fed! Keeping your lawn well fed will make it strong and more resilient to disease, pests, weeds, drought and other stresses, resulting in a lovely lush lawn to be proud of!

Knowing what type of fertiliser to use and when to use it can be quite confusing, so follow our tips below on fertilising your lawn so you can keep it healthy, strong and green.

Laying a New Lawn

When laying a new lawn it is a good idea to apply fertiliser beforehand to get it off to the best start. Use a pre-turfing fertiliser in a granular or pellet form and scatter it onto the soil before hand. Follow the guidelines on the packet for spreading rate as over fertilising can have negative effects. Sprinkle the fertiliser onto the soil before laying the turf, and water well once the turf has been laid. Your turf supplier may provide you will a pre-turfing fertiliser to get you off to a good start.

Fertilising an Existing Lawn

By keeping your lawn well fed throughout the year, you can always have a lawn to be proud of. Follow our tips below to keep it green and healthy all year long.

Fertilising Your Lawn Throughout the Year

Spring

After having a nice rest over the winter, your lawn will be ready to get going again as soon as spring comes around. By fertilising the lawn at this time, it will encourage strong and healthy root growth ready for the year ahead. Use a spring feed, or a combined spring weed and feed, to provide a good mix of essential nutrients. A good time to apply this feed is around the same time your lawn is due its first mow of the year.

Summer

Turf can struggle in the hot weather during the summer months (if we’re lucky enough to get the hot weather that is!). By fertilising your lawn during the summer, it will help to keep it strong and resilient against the stresses of summer weather. Use a summer lawn feed to keep your lawn healthy as and when needed throughout the summer months.

Autumn

In autumn your lawn is still growing and after the stress of the summer months it will appreciate a bit of a feed. By fertilising now it will make sure your lawn ends the growing season healthy, ready to remain strong and resilient through the quieter winter months. Apply a winter feed towards the end of autumn and your lawn will be well prepared to get going again the following spring.

Winter

There is no need to fertilise your lawn during the winter. Your lawn will be quiet and growing rate naturally slows right down – fertilising at this time would just encourage your turf to grow when it wouldn’t normally be growing anyway, so there is no need. Following the fertilisation above, your turf will be happy to have a rest over the winter and be ready to go again as soon as spring comes round.

Which Nutrients is my lawn lacking?

There are many different fertilisers and lawn feeds on the market, and in most instances a standard lawn feed will do the trick. Manufacturers have specially designed seasonal lawn feeds suitable for applying at different times throughout the year, with a good combination of all the nutrients your lawn will need. If you want to fertilise your lawn more specifically however, here is clue as to what your lawn may be lacking so you can choose a fertiliser more carefully:

Nitrogen Deficient – Yellowing of older leaves, closely followed by yellowing of large areas.

Phosphorous Deficient – Older leaves turn dark green closely followed by a purple discolouration.

Potassium Deficient – Leaf tips tend to turn brown and dry up while leaf edges look burnt and brown.

Calcium Deficient – This is very rare, but if present the youngest leaves turn a red-brown colour at the edges.

Magnesium Deficient – Older leaves show a cherry-red discolouration. Browning and dying appears if the deficiency persists.

Sulphur Deficient – Very rare, but if present leaves initially turn a pale yellow while the leaf tip and edges turn brown.

Iron Deficient – Growth can slow significantly, and yellowing of the veins withing th leaves begins to show.

Keep your lawn well fed throughout the year and you will have a lawn to be proud of. A healthy lawn will be strong and resilient and look top quality all year long!