Lawn Fertilisers - how much is enough?

The Role Of Lawn Fertilisers

Lawn fertilisers are an essential element in maintaining the health and well being of our lawns. To maximise results and reduce wastage or damage to the environment, it's important they are used correctly in our lawn care.

The answer is.... there is no one answer.

All lawn fertilisers are different, made with different quality ingredients, by different manufacturers, in different concentrations and mixtures of nutrients.

For these reasons, it is very important to follow the manufacturers instructions, to ensure your lawn receives the nutrients that the lawn fertiliser was made to deliver.

Over Application Of Lawn Fertilisers

It is very important not to exceed the recommended application rate of the lawn fertiliser being used.

Over application simply wastes the excess being applied because the lawn cannot use the excess nutrients. These nutrients simply end up in our storm water drains, in our rivers and waterways, and leech into the water table causing massive environmental damage.

Some people can mistakenly believe that a super application will green up their lawn even more and even faster, this is simply not true, it is very poor lawn care practice and the opposite effect can often occur. When too many nutrients are applied to the lawn at once, the nutrient receptacles in the plant can actually shut down to avoid damage from uptaking these excess nutrients.

Lawn Fertiliser - Little and Often

The golden rule for lawn fertilising is to apply it little and often, small doses applied frequently.

When we do this, the lawn, or any other plant is exposed to a constant nutrient supply at safe levels throughout its life.

One way to do this is applying the manufacturers guidelines for application rates every about two months.

The second way is to reduce the manufacturers guidelines and apply more frequently. For example, if the manufacturer recommends 50 grams per square meter every two months, we can reduce that amount to 15-20 gsm, applied once a month, reducing our lawn fertiliser usage even further, and maintaining a more continuous nutrient supply. When using this method in our lawn care, it is important to lower the application amounts below manufacturers recommendations. So 50 gsm per two months, does NOT equate to 25 gsm per one month. THE DOSAGE MUST BE LOWER FURTHER.