A lush green lawn increases your home’s curb appeal immensely and makes it a wonderful place to relax or play. So, don’t let the hot summer months dull your lawn and make it anything less than green and vibrant! To ensure that your lawn thrives all summer, you’ll need to give it some summer lawn care, and one of the things that involves summer fertilization.
Using summer fertilizer requires a bit of caution as it can have adverse effects on your lawn if applied incorrectly. Consider seeking the help of a professional lawn care company in Des Moines to prevent any uneven growth or burning of your lawn.
How is Summer Fertilizer Different?
Fertilizers that are used in the summer months don’t focus on root growth but on assisting the lawn in water retention, deep nutrition, and weed control, which are all issues that impact lawns during the summertime.
During summer, your lawn’s growth cycle may be disrupted by weeds, bugs, intermittent heavy rainfall, dry spells, and more. The fertilizer should help address these problems so that your lawn stays healthy and lush.
Most summer fertilizers have properties that support the grass in resisting insects, weeds, and drought, growing deeper roots, and retaining water. In some ways, the summer lawn food serves as an all-purpose fertilizer and helps get rid of issues that commonly occur with the summer heat.
Need for Summer Fertilization
We all know that fertilizing in the fall is important to facilitate the deeper growth of grassroots to help the grass become stronger in winter. Well, it’s just as important to fertilize your lawn during the summer.
“Fertilizers designed for the summer can help in healthy grass growth and make your grass look great. Summer fertilizer may also possess turf builder properties, which can increase the amount of grass and improve overall lawn health.”
Summer fertilization will also secure your lawn in the event of a drought or adverse weather conditions that are not favorable for new grass growth. Fertilizers for summer lawn feed are released slowly to keep the turf well-fed and healthy even during times when water is less than an inch per week. If you have warm-season grasses, such fertilizer can strengthen your grasses allowing them to handle sharp weather changes in summer.
Moreover, summer fertilizer can prevent your lawn from going brown or dormant.
How to Know if your Lawn Needs Summer Fertilization
There are several ways to know whether your lawn needs fertilization during the summer, with the first one being bare patches. If you find your lawn to be balding, it may need some grass seed or fertilizer to address the spots. Slow grass growth is another indicator. Remember to mow your lawn at least once a week.
Additionally, watch out for weeds in your lawn, as an increasing number also may indicate the need for summer fertilization. It means that the weeds have hindered the growth of healthy grass and you need to offer some care to your lawn in Des Moines. If your lawn lacks in color or thickness, adding some summer lawn food can nourish your lawn.
Summer Fertilization Considerations
Using fertilizer during the summer can lead to sudden new growth, which, if not supported with additional water and other measures, can wither and die.
A danger with summer fertilizer is if granular fertilizer is not diluted enough, the grassroots can experience burnout. Dilution with adequate water is necessary to help the soil and plants absorb the nutrients. Using a pre-diluted liquid fertilizer can also help.
If summer fertilizer is misapplied, it can lead to sudden but patchy new grass growth.
Fertilizer application should be performed regularly on a set lawn feeding schedule over the entire growing season.
“It’s recommended to use a slow-release fertilizer meant to provide nutrients over a longer period of time. This further lowers the risk of contaminating soil, water tables, or burning roots.”
Grass Clippings as Fertilizer
In addition to summer fertilizer, or even as a replacement, you can use grass clippings. Recycling grass clippings to serve as fertilizer is an organic and easy way to add nitrogen to your soil in the summer when the grass is typically stressed and strained because of the weather.
Keep the mower deck 2.5 – 3 inches high and mow the grass regularly to leave short clippings of grass on your lawn that can break down naturally. Mowing after a long time will lead to longer grass clippings. Leaving them intact is not recommended, as the longer pieces will take too long to break down and cause a thatch issue.
Using grass clippings as a fertilizer is a simple method of adding nutrients to the soil and can also save you work and time.
Wrap Up
Summer fertilization is a vital ingredient of your overall lawn care. You can always rely on All American Turf Beauty to do the job right leading to excellent results. Whether it’s planning your summer lawn care schedule, applying summer weed and feed, or spring summer lawn feed, our lawn care professionals can help you out. We offer expert summer lawn care services in Des Moines, Mason City, and many other areas in and around Iowa. Plan your summer fertilizer and weed control schedule today and call us for expert summer lawn care services!