Spring is an ideal time to give your yard a good dose of nutrients. But standing in the garden center, trying to determine which bag of fertilizer to purchase for your lawn, can be overwhelming. Your options might look something like this: Slow-Release 28-3-8 for $28, or 21-2-8 + Weed Control for $34, or the standard bag of 21-4-8 fertilizer with no additives for $10. Faced with the concern of what to do, you may wonder, “Is the value of the additives worth the difference in cost?”
Once only used by professionals, slow-release fertilizers are now available for home lawn care.
Photo Credit: Daniel Overcash
Weed and Feed combination products promote grass growth and weed killing, but they can be costly.
Photo Credit: Daniel Overcash
Broadleaf weed control products take care of weeds, but they don’t provide nutrients.
Photo Credit: Daniel Overcash
Let’s figure that out.
All fertilizer has a guaranteed analysis (by law), which means a bag of the most expensive, nationally branded 22-10-20 contains the same amount of fertilizer as a bag of the generic, store brand 22-10-20. The difference is in the additives that companies “add” to the fertilizer to create a multipurpose product.
A standard fertilizer – one with no additives – releases all the available nutrients soon after the first rain or watering. This leads to a period of rapid green growth that tapers off before the end of the season. To combat this, the industry developed a system to slow down this rapid release of nutrients with “slow-release” fertilizers.
Slow-release fertilizers have been used in the nursery industry and for houseplants for years. But they’re now being widely used on lawns. They come with a coating over each fertilizer pellet that takes repeated watering for it to break down. With each watering or rain, the slow-release coating dissolves and a little fertilizer is released. This is a good way to provide season-long fertilization, but the technology and convenience comes with a higher cost.
To save money and still get good season-long fertilization, try using a standard fertilizer, but make three partial applications. For example, if your yard needs 30 pounds of fertilizer, instead of using 30 pounds of slow-release in March, use 10 pounds of standard fertilizer in March, 10 pounds in April and 10 pounds in May. This provides the same results and greatly reduces the cost.
A similar cost savings can be made for the fertilizer + broadleaf weed control product. This type of fertilizer has been around for a long time and works well to control broadleaf weeds like dandelions and clover – but it, too, can be costly. A bag of this stuff may cost $34, compared with a bag of weed control for $10 and a bag of standard fertilizer for $10.
Heck, that’s a $14 savings for the same results! (You can use that money for when you move on to the bug sprays…)
