5 Best Lawn Fertilizers to Boost Your Lawn in 2019

How Does Lawn Fertilizer Work?

To understand precisely how they work, you need to think of grass as a living organism, similar to a human body. Like you need different vitamins and nutrients from food and water, your lawn also needs minerals, vitamins and nutrients to be healthy, and make the photosynthesis process more efficient. Sometimes, soil isn’t able to provide all required nutrients for the sod to grow properly, and you need to give it a boost. Like you’d take some vitamins when you’re feeling low on energy. Besides providing the best conditions for a grass to grow and develop, a good lawn fertilizer will also make it easier for roots to develop and keep pests away. Even more than that, choosing the best time to fertilize lawn along with a high-quality product will keep your grass-plot in top shape all year long, even during harsh winters. Most fertilizers offer a balanced mix of Nitrogen, Potassium, and phosphorus, while some may also contain manganese, cobalt, iron, chlorine or zinc. While the absence of so-called, secondary nutrients isn’t necessarily bad for your lawn, making sure soils have them will improve the overall aspect and health.

Can Lawn Fertilizers be Used on Plants?

As a general rule, you can use it on plants, in your garden. Especially true for products we reviewed, fertilizers do not contain any substances that could present a risk when used for plants like vegetables. Despite the controversy around bio food and effects of herbicides and pesticides on vegetables, be sure that you can use any NPK lawn fertilizer for your garden too. However, if you’re using any product outside the ones presented in our comparison plan, make sure to check for any other chemical elements, like iron or Sulfur. They could represent a threat when used in high concentrations.

What’s the Best Time to Fertilize Lawn?

Well, there’s a short and a long answer to this question. If you’re living in a country with 4 seasons, the best time to start fertilizing your grass is in the spring. However, this doesn’t mean that you do it once in early spring and then you forget about it. Going back to the analogy we made with a human body, your lawn needs a constant feed of nutrients to grow healthy and solid. So, the best way to approach fertilizing schedule is by doing it once in early spring when grasses start to go green. Then, in late spring you should apply another layer to give it a boost before the summer, when temperatures grow, and there’s a lot of chances for it to dry. To verify your lawn makes it through the summer and stays in mint shape through most of the fall as well, make sure to use the fertilizer once again. Thus you should be good until next spring. This general template of lawn fertilizing can be applied for most types of yards. However, some particular types require different treatment.

How Long Can I Store Unused Fertilizer?

Usually, if you didn’t finish a bag of fertilizers in one season, you should be able to store it for next year easily. Most fertilizers have a prolonged expiration date and, as long as you save them properly, you will be able to get the most out of them after a season as well. Proper conditions mean a bag should be well sealed and kept in a dry and not too warm place. If you have moisture in a storage room, there’s a big chance that even the best lawn fertilizer will get lumps; however, even so, it is still usable. Just make sure to break any pieces before putting it in a spreader.

Lawn Fertilizer Types

When talking about different types of fertilizers, we can provide you with some classifications. We’re going to take a look at each type and analyze its effectiveness.

Time-Release

This fertilizer is extremely beneficial when it comes to ensuring a constant supply of nutrients over many months. It’s recommended for gardeners that don’t have enough time for maintenance work. Just make sure you choose a qualitative time-release product, and intervals will be wide enough to take great care.

Gradual-Release

This type is great for allowing roots to take in nutrients slowly, while preventing those minerals and nutrients from getting wasted. These fertilizers are very easy to apply and, at the same time, dramatically minimize any chances of burning your lawn thanks to their unique properties.

Granular

We can speak of time-release or slow-release granular fertilizers. No matter which one you get, an advantage of this type is easy application. It makes them ideal for beginners that want to make sure they won’t damage the grass.

Water Soluble

This type is the one you easily spread with a hose, and its main strength lies in being able to cover a large surface quickly. Ignoring the dosage can lead to a high chance of burning the grass, so make sure you pay attention to its quantities.

When to Fertilize Your Lawn

For example, the best lawn fertilizer for spring needs to contain more Nitrogen. Those for late summer or fall will have to provide a larger quantity of Potassium to prepare the grass for the cold season and give roots strength to withstand cold. That’s all you need to know when it comes to different types of products, and you have this information right here, close at hand.

When to Apply Spring Lawn Fertilizer

It’s all down to the type of grass you planted on your green. Most types are warm-season grasses that can easily take a fertilizer on a hot summer day; they will need it then because that’s how they are programmed to function. On the other hand, if the grass is a cold-season type, it is recommended to avoid fertilizing during summer, especially when the temperature is very high, as it can damage a plant. No matter if we’re talking about burning or killing grass slowly, the damage summer fertilizing can produce on cold season grass is considerable. Based on the best lawn fertilizer 2019 reviews, and information our homemakerguide experts have dug up for this article, you should now be able to make up your mind. In case you’re still uncertain, or if terms, like fall lawn fertilizer, or spring lawn fertilizer, are still kind of a mystery for you, just go with our top recommendation. Raw Organic Humic Fulvic Acid surely gets our title of the best lawn fertilizer 2019 offers. It’s because it has all the right ingredients, can be used all year long and ensures proper development for your yard. All producers are constantly researching and developing new formulas to make fertilizers more and more efficient with every new release. So, you can be sure the future will hold even better products that will allow you to get perfect grass with less manual labor on it. Already, you can get robotic lawn mowers that also fertilize grasses while doing their work.