How and When to Feed Your Grass Fertilizer

New home, new lawn, new perspective on lawn care? Congratulations! You've come to the right place. Achieving your lush, green, grassy aspirations all starts with feeding your lawn the nutrients it needs. Don't worry. We're not talking about hours of labor and a myriad of fertilizer products like your neighbors use. Our once-a-season, keep-your-weekends-free approach to lawn fertilizer is a lot more fun.

• Why Lawns Need Fertilizer
• When to Feed Your Grass and Why
• What Fertilizer to Use on Lawns and Why
• How to Fertilize Your Grass

Millions of grass plants are depending on you.

Why Lawns Need Fertilizer

Think about it for a minute. That carpet of green you're hoping for is made up of individual grass plants, each one vying with the rest for the nutrients it needs. Turf researchers say 1 square inch of healthy lawn has about six grass plants. That equals 850 grass plants per square foot. Put those math skills to use, and you'll discover the average lawn has more than 7 million grass plants. Add in some annual weeds and perennial lawn weeds, that's a lot of competition for the food your grass needs.

Even if you let parts of your yard run a little wild, whether that's a mini wildflower meadow or sustainable lawn alternatives, your yard isn't a natural setting. From construction backfill to heavy foot traffic to neglect by a previous owner, it's highly likely your lawn is depleted of the nutrients Mother Nature supplies. The good news is that when you show your lawn some love and satisfy its need for nutrients, it shows some love, too, in the form of thick, lush growth and gorgeous green color.

Fertilize early in the season so your grass has the fuel it needs for growth.

When to Feed Your Grass and Why

Like all plants, lawn grasses go through cycles of growth that follow the seasons of the year. When you feed your grass right when its big growth spurt hits, your lawn can make the most of the nutrients you feed. (You'll get the most out of your fertilizer investment then, too.)

Common northern lawn grasses, like Kentucky Bluegrass and Tall Fescue, are called cool-season grasses. Yep, you guessed it. That's because their times to shine — and grow the most — are cool seasons like spring and fall. Warm-season grasses like Bermudagrass or Zoysia, common in southern lawns, grow the most during warm summer months.

Your lawn grass isn't that different than the plants in your pollinator garden or your houseplants indoors. Nutrients from the fertilizer you feed fuel its active growth. By timing your fertilizer for early spring in northern lawns and late spring/early summer farther south, your grass has plenty of nutrients during its greatest time of need. Choose the right fertilizer, and just one application keeps your grass well-fed all season long.

For grass, the first number on the bag — nitrogen — matters most.

What Fertilizer to Use on Lawns and Why

If you've looked at plant fertilizers online or in the store, you probably noticed some plant foods target flowers and tomatoes, while other types aim for growing leafy greens, like lettuce or kale. The big difference lies in the specific nutrients emphasized in each one. The same principle applies to fertilizers for lawns.

For lush growth and rich color, lawn grass needs nitrogen in greater quantities than any other essential plant nutrient. Fertilizers made especially for lawns emphasize nitrogen above everything else. Check out the three prominent numbers on the fertilizer bag. That's called the N-P-K ratio. (N stands for nitrogen, P for phosphorus and K for potassium, always in that order.) To feed your grass, that first number should always be much higher than the other two.

When you buy Pennington Full Season Lawn Fertilizers, you can trust you're treating your lawn to the premium high-nitrogen nutrition it craves. Pennington Full Season Lawn Fertilizer 32-0-5 revitalizes your lawn with listed plant nutrients and gives your tired soil a boost, too, with beneficial microorganisms that work to improve your soil and help your grass thrive.

With Pennington Full Season Weed & Feed with Crabgrass Control 25-0-8, you get a nitrogen-rich fertilizer plus weed control* to keep new and existing lawn weeds in check. Both these premium fertilizers include 5% iron for extra greening. Plus, they slowly release nitrogen for up to four months. So you can feed your lawn all season with just one easy application at the season's start. It's simple, sustainable lawn care.

Do your lawn a favor. Fertilize with a spreader for even coverage.

How to Fertilize Your Grass