Putting the Lawn on a Well-Balanced Diet

The battle for the best-looking lawn on the block continues. To help your grass stay ahead of the competition, apply fertilizer between now and Thanksgiving for greater success next spring.

Fertilizing the lawn makes it not only prettier, but also healthier. The nutrients in fertilizer help the plant make food for itself, making it stronger for combating weeds and disease. Applying fertilizer is like putting grass on a well-balanced diet.

Lawns should generally be fertilized three to five times a year during the growing season. October is the best time to apply the last application because the top growth has stopped or is slowing down, and more growth effort is given to the roots.

Fertilizer contains three major types of nutrients: nitrogen, recognized by the symbol "N"; phosphorous, chemical symbol "P"; and potash, with a "K" symbol. Why they assigned it the letter "K", I don't know.

These symbols always appear in this order on bags of commercial fertilizer. A fertilizer with a ratio of 3-1-2 or 4-1-2 works best. Pick a manufacturer's fertilization schedule and follow their recommended intervals and application rates.

Fertilizer comes in two forms for different application methods. One is liquid. The other is granular, which can be applied in one of two methods.

Liquid fertilizer is usually faster acting than granular. The lawn generally does not need to be watered for liquid fertilizer to take effect, but it can be beneficial.

Some people consider liquid fertilizer easier to apply. It usually needs to have water added before it's ready to be sprayed. Some liquid fertilizer canisters attach to the garden hose for easy mixing and application.

Granular fertilizer is the most traditional type. It is generally slower acting than liquid types, but acts over a longer period of time.

A drop-type spreader allows granular fertilizer to drop from the bottom at the precise width of the spreader. Because coverage is so even, you can be certain every inch of the lawn is covered by overlapping the tracks of the spreader's wheels.

The broadcast or "whirling" spreader throws the fertilizer out from the spreader, covering a wider area than the drop-type spreader. The same area can be covered more quickly with a broadcast spreader, but more caution is needed in overlapping to achieve uniform and thorough coverage.

Remember, fertilizer doesn't do the lawn any good sitting on a shelf at the garden center or in your garage, so do it yourself or hire someone to do it for you if you want your lawn to stay ahead of the neighborhood competition.