Keeping a really beautiful lawn can take a lot of work! The level of maintenance is up to you, but for really gorgeous grass we recommend regular fertilizing. If you have Bermuda grass, we recommend that you use a pre-emerge in the very early spring to prevent weeds from sprouting. You may also use fertilizer (Nitrogen with varying levels of Potash and Phosphate) in late May and early August. If you have Fescue, you will want to fertilize at the beginning of March, the end of May, the beginning of September, and again in the middle of November. If you have Zoysia grass, we recommend fertilizing in March, May, August, and October. We also recommend using a fungicide twice a year on Zoysia grass – once in early spring, and once in late spring. It is also a good idea to use a pre-emerge on Zoysia in the early fall.
In order to understand what kind of fertilizer you need, it helps to understand what the numbers describing different types of fertilizers mean: the numbers which are used to label different kinds of fertilizer refer to the ratio of Nitrogen, Potash, and Phosphate in the mix. For example, a bag of 20 10 10 indicates that for every 100 parts of the combination, there are 20 parts Nitrogen, and 10 parts each of Potash and Phosphate.
For the first application of fertilizer on any turf which is coming out of dormancy, we recommend using a fertilizer comparable to 20 10 10, unless the soil is extremely deficient. (A soil sample can be used to determine deficient soil. In the case of deficient soil, a fertilizer comparable to 13 13 13 can be used for the first application.) For subsequent applications throughout the year, something similar to 34 0 0 would probably be best.
