Understanding the Types of Lawn Fertilizer
Every homeowner wants to sport a lush, green and attractive lawn. The lawn is the centerpiece of the landscape and can adorn a home in myriad ways. Yet lawn care involves more than simply cutting the grass. Providing sufficient attention to irrigation, drainage and pest/disease control also make for a robust landscape. Equally important is fertilizer. All fertilizers contain varying proportions of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, each which respectively foster growth and color; strong root systems; and vigor against unfavorable conditions. Still, lawns are composed of different grasses and sit atop various soils. Climate also distinguishes them. So, each lawn benefits best from a particular kind of fertilizer. Here’s additional lawn fertilizer information.
Granular Fertilizer
If you are seeking a dry fertilizer, you will generally look at the granular variety. This is produced by grinding the three nutrients named above with salts like ammonium nitrate, ammonium phosphate and potassium chloride. The advantages to this form are several: they are less expensive than liquid fertilizers, especially when purchased in high volumes. With that in mind, granular nutrients are easier to store and preserve. It is also available in a slow-release and time-release form, giving you greater control over when to apply the fertilizer.
Liquid Fertilizer
The nutritive components that constitute liquid fertilizer are extracted and combined in a mixture of urea and ammonium nitrate. Some of the advantages of liquid fertilizer include:
Consistency — each drop of fertilizer holds the same proportion of N to P to K, wheras granules vary one from another.
Integration — it is easier to blend liquid fertilizer with fertilizer materials of different consistency.
Application — covering the lawn evenly is done more efficiently with a liquid application.
Synergy — it works better with other applications, e.g. pesticides and weed killers.
Synthetic Fertilizer
Synthetic, or chemically processed, fertilizer will help you to achieve a rich, green lawn quickly. The fast-acting nature of synthetic products also is helpful when the lawn is dying from nutritional lack. In addition, synthetic fertilizer is easier to apply and comes in either granular or liquid modes. Synthetic fertilizer is most effective in areas meant primarily for appearance, such as front lawns. Back yard areas tend to receive more foot traffic and synthetic products would have to be re-applied more often. Re-application would also become necessary on sloped lawns where run-off is more than likely. Check out how to care for a new sod lawn.
Organic Fertilizer
Unlike synthetic, organic fertilizer, consists of naturally occurring materials like, for example, decaying plant and animal tissue, manure and ground minerals. Organic possesses many favorable qualities. For one thing, this food for grass is natural, biodegradable and does little harm to the environment. Better still, it fortifies the soil, making it healthier and more fertile while helping it to better retain moisture. Organic fertilizer is less toxic than synthetic and less problematic when too much is applied. At the same time, organic is more difficult to apply and often costs more than chemically processed varieties.
Several factors affect what fertilizer will work best for your purposes, from science and scenery to ethics and expediency. Expense is another variable. To answer the issues of cost and ecology, many cold climate denizens are planting ornamental and wild grasses that hold their own with very few fertilizer applications. For those that desire the luxuriant, golf course look, fertilizer is a necessary part of the landscaping strategy. As we have seen, size and layout can impact choice of fertilizer, as can time and lawn care aptitude. Fortunately, there are enough kinds of nutrients to satisfy anyone. Hop to this page and give us a call now!
