FERTILIZING YOUR NEW LAWN

After watering and mowing, the final step to a lush green lawn is fertilizer.  Lawns require a regular program of high nitrogen fertilizer for leaf development.  Fertilizers come in many different blends for many different purposes. Take a look at the fertilizer bag and find the numeric three digit code. The numbers represent what percentage of the product is nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium respectively. A lawn food should primarily consist of nitrogen and include some phosphorous and potassium. 

Twice per year, in the spring and fall, fertilize with an all purpose fertilizer to promote root growth. General purpose fertilizers have a balanced blend of nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium. Using a general purpose fertilizer once in the spring and once in the fall will help insure phosphorous and potassium levels in the soil remain adequate.

A Word about Nitrogen:
Nitrogen is available in three forms; urea, ammoniacal, and nitrate. Nitrate nitrogen is available to the plant immediately and will green the lawn much more quickly than other forms of nitrogen. Only nitrate form nitrogen is useable by the lawn. Urea form and ammonia form nitrogen must first be broken down in the soil to the nitrate form before the lawn can use it. As a result, some fertilizers are faster acting than others, even with the same amount of total nitrogen.