Lawn care is a science. This can be seen from the fact that in sports greenkeepers are paid to ensure that not a single blade of the sacred lawn is bent and that it is permanently lush green in the sap. Now you can hardly compare the short grass carpets in football stadiums or other sports facilities with the small green behind the house or in the allotment garden. But with a little care, the playing area for children and children can also be trimmed into an attractive lawn. Fertilizer is an important building block on the way there. Here you can find out why fertilizing the lawn is particularly important in spring, which nutrients the blades particularly like and how to apply the fertilizer correctly.
Strictly speaking, there are several correct and important times when fertilizing your lawn. So that the greenery remains resilient and can assert itself against weeds, it should be regularly supplied with nutrients throughout the year. It starts in March/April, when the stalks need a strong boost of energy after a long winter with little sunlight. You then add a small fertilizer snack about three months later in the summer. The lawn receives the last nutrient booster in autumn, at the latest at the end of October.
Here, too, there is no one right answer. In order to support the stalks in the important time of early summer, i.e. over a longer period of time, you should ideally use a slow-release fertilizer in spring. It contains all the important nutrients, including potassium, which provides the meadow with important defenses. In addition, it helps the tender young stalks to take off after new or re-sowing. Make sure that the slow-release fertilizer contains as little phosphate and no nitrate as possible. Both salts are not needed at all or only in small quantities by the roots and also pollute the already stressed groundwater.
While it is important in spring which fertilizer you apply to the lawn, summer fertilization is more about waiting for the right moment. Rule of thumb: Never fertilize in the midday heat. Instead, opt for the evening hours and when the weather is as humid as possible. Why? When the soil is bone dry, the irrigation water (which dissolves the nutrients) evaporates so quickly that the roots have to process nutrients that are too concentrated, which can harm them. And it is precisely for this reason that fans of lush greenery turn to organic or organo-mineral lawn fertilizer in summer. On the one hand, they are easier to dose. Secondly, due to the lower proportion of minerals, there is hardly any risk of over-fertilizing or damaging the roots of the lawn. Third point: Organic fertilizers are harmless to insects and all other small and large garden animals.
In autumn, the lawn needs a lot of food in order to be able to permanently defend itself against the low temperatures of winter. As a rule, special autumn lawn fertilizers therefore have a fairly high potassium content.
If you work with organic fertilizer, you can supply normal soil with nutrients from the beginning of March. It is best to apply mineral fertilizers about a month later. The reason: Organic fertilizers release nutrients much more slowly, but more evenly.
That’s how it works:
In order to fertilize the lawn evenly, experienced greenkeepers recommend working with a spreader. It is important that you tile across the meadow in a structured manner and not in a freestyle manner. It’s best to go one lane at a time and, if possible, with no gaps in between. Fertilizing by hand is a little more demanding. However, swinging your arm with your half-open hand should be practiced; otherwise, when fertilizing by hand there is a risk of showering the lawn with too many nutrients. By the way, fertilizers from well-known manufacturers are safe for dogs and small children. Problematic ingredients such as castor bean meal, which used to be contained in many fertilizers, no longer end up in their nutrient mixtures for a long time. Immediately after fertilizing (and watering), the meadow is free to kick and run around again.
Sources:Plantura garden magazine, My beautiful garden
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