When to Fertilize a Lawn, and How: A Lawn Lover’s Guide

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Knowing when to fertilize a lawn—and how—is a big part of keeping your yard lush and amping up that all-important curb appeal. Fertilizing, after all, is a way to give your grass the extra nutrients it needs to flourish.

Only how do you fertilize a lawn, and how often, and what is the best fertilizer to buy? For this second installment of our Lawn Lover’s Guide, we talked to experts to help you figure out everything you need to know to keep your lawn looking gorgeous all summer long.

When to fertilize your lawn

Fertilizing your lawn is a critical part of helping the grass grow, kind of like giving your yard a multivitamin. But unlike the One a Days that people take, a good fertilization game plan only needs to be done a few times a year, says Kevin Shanks, manager of retail training at Scotts Miracle-Gro.

In the North, where cool-season grass types like Kentucky bluegrass, perennial ryegrass, and fescues dominate, Shanks says you’ll want to feed your lawn twice in the spring and twice again in the fall.

“Each feeding should be spaced six to eight weeks apart,” he adds. “If your cool-season lawn is still green and actively growing in the summer, you can continue to feed it throughout the summer months. However, if your grass goes dormant—in other words, turns brown—during summer heat and drought, temporarily stop feeding until it greens up and starts to grow again in the early fall.”

In the South, where warm-season grasses like St. Augustine, Bermuda, zoysia, centipede, and bahia grass are prominent, Shanks suggests feeding your lawn four times a year—in early spring, late spring, summer, and fall.

“Feeding warm-season grasses in the summer is important because they grow most actively during the heat of summer, so feeding helps fuel and sustain their rapid growth,” he explains.

The best fertilizer for your lawn

Of course, fertilizing your lawn requires … buying fertilizer. But if you’ve hit up your local garden supply store, to find yourself stumped by the dozens and dozens of bags, all listing different bonuses for your grass, you’re not alone, says Zach Hendrix, co-founder of GreenPal, an Uber-like service for lawn care.

“The numbers on the fertilizer bag can be a little perplexing at first,” Hendrix says. To help make sense of it all, he offers the following rule of thumb: The numbers you see on the bag represent a percent of the content that is included in the bag, and they’ll appear in this order: nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.

“In most cases, a homeowner can go with a balanced fertilizer such as a 15-15-15 and will be OK,” Hendrix says. However, to really tune your fertilizer selection, get the best bang for your buck, and the best results, here are those best-use cases:

For an established lawn: This type of grass primarily needs nitrogen. Nitrogen is the least expensive of the nutrients, Hendrix explains. “Don’t waste your money and buy a formula that has high phosphorus or potassium when you don’t need them,” he says. You’ll want the numbers on the bag to start with a big number, for the nitrogen, followed by two smaller numbers for your phosphorus and potassium. Sample bag reading: 21-3-14. For a new or damaged lawn: A new lawn is special and needs more phosphorus and potassium to produce roots, Hendrix says. Skip high nitrogen, because the roots are not ready to handle top growth. “Phosphorus and potassium are going to end up costing you more money, so you would not use this all the time, but investing in the more expensive ingredients for a new or damaged lawn is wise,” Hendrix notes. You’ll want a small amount or even no nitrogen in this case, with larger amounts of phosphorus and potassium. Sample bag reading: 0-10-15. To prepare a lawn for winter: “During the winter months, the grass has stressful conditions to deal with,” Hendrix notes.The upshot? Your lawn will need a deeper feeding for the long haul, and more potassium. “Applying the more expensive potassium can prevent problems from developing or continuing,” Hendrix adds. “Pay now and don’t pay later.” You’ll want large amounts of nitrogen, small amounts of phosphorus, and medium to large amounts of potassium. Sample bag reading: 21-7-14.

 

How to fertilize your lawn

Now that you’ve picked out the right fertilizer, how do you actually, well, fertilize your lawn?

You’ll want to invest in or rent a broadcast spreader, says Don Zerby of Ecolawn in Eastlake, OH, since this will make the job go a lot faster and more smoothly than trying to spread fertilizer by hand.

“Adjust the lever to match the recommended flow setting on the fertilizer bag,” he says, then fill the spreader with your fertilizer.

“In most cases, you’ll want to spread fertilizer around the outer edges of your lawn and work in towards the middle, overlapping a little as you go,” he adds. “When in doubt, apply too little rather than too much.”

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