When Should I Fertilize My Lawn?

Fertilize your lawn when it is actively growing, which for most yards means spring and fall, with the heaviest feeding in fall. Grass uses what you put down only when it is growing, so timing matters more than the bag you buy. Spread fertilizer on a dormant or heat-stressed lawn and most of it washes past the roots or burns the blades instead of feeding them.

Spring and Fall Do the Heavy Lifting

A light spring feeding wakes the lawn up and helps it fill in after winter. Go easy here. Pushing too much nitrogen in spring grows soft top growth that the first heat wave punishes, and it feeds weeds as much as grass.

Fall is the meal that counts. As the air cools and the grass slows down on top, it pours energy into the roots, and a fall feeding stores up the reserves that carry the lawn through winter and green it up early next year. If you only fertilize once, do it in fall.

Skip the Hottest Weeks

Summer heat is a time to back off, not pile on. A stressed, half-dormant lawn cannot use a heavy feeding, and the salts in fertilizer can scorch grass that is already fighting drought. If you feed at all in summer, use a light, slow-release product that meters nitrogen out over weeks instead of dumping it at once.

Test Before You Guess

A simple soil test tells you what your lawn is actually short on, so you are not throwing down nitrogen when the real problem is low potassium or a sour pH. It costs a few dollars and saves you from feeding blind. Slow-release nitrogen is the workhorse either way, since it feeds steadily and resists the surge-and-crash you get from cheap quick-release blends.

Timing, rate, and product all have to line up, which is why a season-long fertilization program beats a random bag from the garage. We are licensed applicators and follow the label rates on every visit. If you would rather not track the calendar yourself, our annual lawn program puts each feeding down at the right time for your grass.

Summit Lawn Care has been building thick lawns around the Springfield area since 1985. Call us at (555) 123-4567 for a free lawn analysis and we will lay out a feeding schedule that fits your yard.