To Fertilize Or Not To Fertilize

The best time to fertilize

In today’s exclusive interview, we asked Benjamin Mejia, owner of Sunshine Landscape Design, to share a few tips on fertilization.

Timing is everything when discussing fertilization.The best time to fertilize depends on the type of grass in your lawn, the appearance (color, density, uniformity) you want for your lawn. Nitrogen is the key! It is something a lot of homeowners struggle with when maintaining the lawn. Texas lawns usually need a low rate of nitrogen applied once in the spring and, if needed, once again in the fall no later than 6 weeks before the expected first frost. It is best to fertilize grass when it is actively growing and able to absorb the fertilizer… and that is definitely not in the Winter. During the Winter, grasses are dormant and will not take up the fertilizer.

Everyone has there own opinion on the amounts of fertilizer to put, my rule of thumb is to split the fertilizer into two smaller applications rather than make one heavy application. The best time to fertilize is in the Spring. For warm-season grasses, the first nitrogen fertilizer application should be made after the grass has greened up and has required mowing two or three times. This indicates that the grass is actively growing and can readily use applied nitrogen.

-Benjamin Mejia.