The best time of day to fertilize a lawn is morning because that’s when the temperature is cooler and the grass is moist with dew. Heat and dryness are your enemies when fertilizing your lawn. Even without hot temperatures, applying chemical fertilizers to grass exposes it to the danger of burning. Plus fertilizer should be watered immediately into the soil, and this task is easier to perform on a lawn already moist. The exception is with “weed and feed” products, which you don’t want to water in immediately: You want the herbicidal component to maintain contact with the weeds for a period of time.
Should You Fertilize Your Lawn?
There are many things to consider before answering this question. Not everyone’s goals and circumstances are the same. So the answer will vary from individual to individual. If you want a great-looking lawn, and if you have the time, energy, and money to achieve that objective, then the answer is unequivocally yes. Proper fertilization is one factor that can make one lawn in the neighborhood stand out above the rest. Which brings us to the question, How often should you fertilize your lawn? Because, if you truly care about showcasing your lawn, you will want to fertilize it more than someone who is content with a patchy lawn. For the ultimate manicured lawn, you should fertilize it two or three times per year. But not everyone needs (or even wants) a lush lawn. There are homeowners who value low maintenance over having the showiest lawn on the block. There are some homeowners who are organic gardeners, who shy away from using chemical fertilizers. Homemade compost can be applied to a lawn, instead, but there is work involved in making compost. Gardeners may value what compost is available too highly to waste it on lawns rather than on vegetable gardens. And there are some who simply hold lawns in low esteem; for them, grass-covered areas are utilitarian, functioning merely as spaces for walking from point A to point B in the landscape. If any of those descriptions fit you, the good news is that grass can perform reasonably well for years without being babied with fertilizer. You may have to overseed your lawn occasionally as compensation, but this will still mean less work and less expense in the long run. Just don’t expect to have the best-looking lawn in the neighborhood.
When to Fertilize Your Lawn
What time of year is best to fertilize your lawn depends on what type of grass you have, cool-season or warm-season. This is because the best time to fertilize is the period when the grass in question is growing most actively, and this period is different for cool-season grasses than it is for warm-season grasses. Nonetheless, there’s no one “right” fertilizer schedule. Different people have success doing it in slightly different ways. All that can be suggested is a typical schedule favored by many.
Fertilizing Cool-Season Grasses
True to their name, cool-season grasses, which are used in the North, grow most actively when the weather is cool: fall and spring. Keeping this in mind, if you want to go all-out in your lawn care, you will fertilize three times:
Fertilizing Warm-Season Grasses
Warm-season grasses are used in the South. They grow most actively when the weather is warm. A typical schedule, consisting of two feedings, would run as follows:
When Not to Fertilize Your Lawn
Don’t apply fertilizer when a heavy rainstorm is in the forecast. A downpour may wash the fertilizer away. But if you’re expecting a moderate amount of rain to come and to fall steadily upon the earth, this is an ideal time to fertilize: It will save you from having to water the fertilizer in, yourself. Since heat and dryness are your enemies when fertilizing a lawn, avoid applying fertilizer to your grass during periods of severe drought. Your grass is stressed at such times, increasing the likelihood that a chemical fertilizer will burn it.
