For most lawn owners in Australia, there are not too many of us who are seeking to work towards that perfect lawn as being something overly important or worthy of too much of our precious free time. Yet, we all want to have as nice a lawn as possible, and so we may be looking for some very straightforward and not too fancy lawn care tips to help us achieve that goal without the work and expense becoming too much of a burden. Regular lawn mowing in frequency matching the growth rates for any given time of year, and good lawn watering, and removing weeds as soon as possible are all easy and straightforward things we can do to work towards the end of having a nice home lawn.
However most of us may neglect one of the most important aspects of lawn care altogether, or we may approach the practice of fertilising our lawns in a rather haphazard way. Which instead of giving us an overall better lawn throughout the year, may just give us short growth spurts here and there, and various times of more rapid lawn growth, without really giving us what we would like to achieve when we fertilise our lawns, which is a better lawn all year round.
To help us have a healthier and a nicer lawn throughout the year, we must implement a lawn fertilising program. A fertilising program which is thought through to work for us at all times of the year. Such a fertilising program doesn’t have to be difficult or time consuming, it really just means that we know at what times of the year we want to fertilise our lawns and to mark that in our calendars or in a reminder app of some kind, and having a bag of suitable quality lawn fertiliser on hand… and that’s really all that’s involved… very simple.
Fertilising With The Seasons
Winter for me is always the key foundation point for me with lawn fertilising.
Winter is the time when lawns will go into semi-dormancy for a few months, and when they will need the most care and strength to get through the coldest months, and lawn fertilising can help us achieve that end, so that we can have a greener lawn in Winter.
Winter is followed by Spring… of course… and it is in Spring when lawns will SPRING back to life again, begin to grow, and begin to look better after coming out of Winter. And it is at this point in Spring that we want to take the fullest advantage of this time of growth as soon as it hits. And once again, lawn fertiliser, applied at the right times will help us with that very goal of having a rapid Spring green up of our lawns.
While many people may naturally believe that this would mean fertilising our lawns at the outset of Spring, in most cases this is not best practice at all. And when we look around at nature, when does nature fertilise its own landscapes across the entire earth? In Autumn, not in Spring, keep that in mind. Nature fertilises in Autumn when it drops the leaves from trees to insulate soils over Winter and then to fertilise the soil with the decomposition of those same leaves, so that by the time Spring arrives, the soils of the earth have already been fertilised.
A Sample Lawn Fertilising Schedule
This is a lawn fertilising schedule which I have used over the years and which has worked well for me. You may need to adjust this program to better suit the region where you live, but this may still be a good beginning from which to work with.
With Winter being the foundation point, I want my lawn to be the healthiest it can be BEFORE Winter onsets. So I apply an application of lawn fertiliser a little over one month prior to Winter arriving. For me, Winter begins in June, so I fertilise my lawns in the last week of April, which allows the lawn to use the final weeks of Autumn to take up the fertiliser, for the fertiliser to distribute through the soil profile, and so that the lawn becomes the strongest it can before Winter arrives and before the lawn becomes somewhat sleepy without much growth.
I have used a lawn fertiliser with a high Iron content, as this will help lawns stay greener and healthier over Winter. When using a fertiliser with Iron, be sure to use a leaf blower or broom or garden hose to thoroughly remove any fertiliser which may have landed on paths or garden furniture, because permanent and ugly staining from the Iron in the fertiliser will occur as soon as the fertiliser granules come into contact with water.
So I’ve strengthened my lawn before Winter has arrived.
This doesn’t necessarily mean we will have a lush green lawn through Winter, only that we’ve done the best we can for our lawns to keep them healthy through the coldest months.
I will then apply another application of lawn fertiliser with a high Iron content in mid to late July, over halfway through the Winter months. Again, don’t expect miracles here, our lawns are in semi-dormancy and there is a limit to what they can actually do.
Some researchers have said that Couch lawns will go brown if lawn fertiliser is applied in mid-Winter, though I haven’t seen this personally myself, this could be a regional difference. So if your Couch lawn does go brown over Winter after fertilising, worry not for the lawn is not harmed and will still come back to full health in Spring. It may just mean that you don’t apply fertiliser mid-Winter next year at your location.
These two lawn fertiliser applications should now produce their rewards to us as soon as Spring arrives. What we should see is that our lawns will spring back to life and become lush and green very quickly in the earliest part of Spring when most other lawns are still looking a little lacklustre and the worse for wear after a gruelling Winter.
I will then apply lawn fertiliser at about every three months thereafter, always aiming to get back to that pre-Winter starting point, with regularly applied fertiliser applications at regular intervals.
If the lawn is lush and green and strong, and growing very well in mid-Summer, I may skip fertilising the lawn in mid-Summer altogether.
And that’s it.
All very simple.
Lawn Fertilising Summary
Winter is the weakest point of the year for our lawns, and so we aim to make our lawns the strongest for Winter, we do this in the weeks leading up to the onset of the cold season.
We then feed our lawns again in mid-Winter to keep them well fed, and their soils nutrient rich.
Then as soon as Spring arrives our lawns should be rip-roaring ready to go like a hundred metre sprinter launching from the blocks. Greening up very quickly and outpacing almost all other lawns around us in growth and health for that time of year.
We then keep our lawns well with nutrients in the rest of the year, with an application of fertiliser every few months.
This in turn will ensure we have the healthiest lawns possible, no matter the time of year, and for the greatest portion of the year. Remembering that the time going into Winter, being in Winter, and coming out of Winter can all add up to about a third or more of the entire year, with the less well cared for lawns often not looking their best for perhaps half the entire year.
A simple year round fertilising program, or schedule, based around Winter being the foundational starting point of any schedule allows us to have the healthiest lawns we can for the greatest portions of the entire year.
All regions in Australia differ as to specific weather patterns, soil types etc, and we all grow different types of grasses for our lawns. So while this is one example of a year round lawn fertilising program, you may need to tweak this program to find what works best for your own lawn where you live, and over the years you’ll find the very best lawn fertilising solution for your own lawn in your own local region.
And for those of us even less eager to put this little effort in to having greener lawns, perhaps if we’re renting, or if we’re just too time poor, then even two applications of fertiliser each year will improve things for the better. And in such a case I would use a high quality slow release lawn fertiliser, I would much mow my lawns always, and I would apply one fertiliser application one month before Winter arrives, and then again before Winter ends, perhaps a month before Winter ends to allow the soil and the lawn to take the fullest advantage of that fertiliser application before Spring arrives.
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