by You need to know which fertilizers are necessary to help with turfgrass green-up and growth for your southern Alabama. Depending on the type of grass gracing your yard, you may need to use a nitrogen-dense fertilizer or one with lower amounts of nitrogen.
Four Types of Warm Season Grasses
In Baldwin and Mobile Counties, four types of warm season grasses grow in local lawns:
- Bermuda
- Centipede
- St. Augustine
- Zoysia.
Warm season grasses snowball during the summer. The above-mentioned warm season grasses do well in sandy soils and thrive in Alabama’s hot summers.
Centipede lawns don’t need a lot of care during the summer. Matter of fact, your centipede lawn uses 50-75% less nitrogen fertilizer during the season to grow thick and look green.
The other three warm season grasses need about 1lb to 2 lbs. of nitrogen fertilizer per 1,000 sq. ft. divided into four-week intervals throughout the spring and summer’s growing seasons.
Got mole crickets in your lawn? Learn more about how to get rid of them.
Why Your Alabama Lawn Needs More Nitrogen This Spring and Summer
There’s more to fertilizing your Southern Alabama lawn than making sure that there’s the correct ratio of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium in your fertilizer mix.
The soil underneath your lawn may be clay—, which hardens like cement unless it’s treated for porosity or it could be sandy where water and liquid nutrients wash through the soil.
There’s also pH to consider. Lawn grass, typically, does better in slightly acidic soils. However, if your property’s soil is too alkaline, your lawn care professional will need to add sulfur to make it more acidic.
Conversely, if your property’s soil is too acidic, your lawn technician will need to add lime to make it more alkaline.
Once your lawn care company takes care of the pH problems with your soil, it’s now time to add the right amount of fertilizer.
Since warm season grasses grow fast and furious over the spring and summer months, they need more nitrogen in their fertilizer to help your turfgrass grow thick and green.
You’ll see these benefits with May fertilization:
- Your lawn will evenly fill in any bare patches.
- Your lawn will be greener and thicker—crowding out weeds.
- Your lawn will grow evenly throughout the plant rather than just on top.
- Your lawn will be able to withstand a lot of foot traffic.
Read these six benefits of Polyon fertilizer in this blog post.
How Your Local Lawn Care Company Is the Right Choice for Your Lawn Fertilizer Needs
You can apply lawn fertilizer on your Alabama lawn, but you could use the wrong fertilizer, at the wrong time and in the wrong amount.
When you use too much nitrogen-based fertilizer, your lawn grass will not develop deep roots underground. Instead, it’ll grow too fast on top and could destroy your lawn.
You need a local lawn care company where the technicians know exactly how much nitrogen your lawn needs. Plus, your lawn care company knows when granular or liquid fertilizers are best for the time of year.
In early spring, you want a liquid fertilizer to kick-start your turfgrass to grow and green up quickly. Once you get to May and June, your lawn care professional will use a slow-release fertilizer to dissolve into the soil gradually to keep your lawn green.
How Xtreme Turf Lawn Care Provides the Best Fertilizer for Your AL Lawn
If you live in Baldwin or Mobile County in southern AL, you need Xtreme Turf Lawn Care’s fertilizer program. At Xtreme Turf, we know precisely which ratio of nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium to use on your lawn.
We’ll keep your Alabama property looking mean and green all season long.
If you’re ready to hire a local, professional lawn care company in southern Alabama, call us today at 251-648-9947 or fill out our contact form.
Xtreme Turf Lawn Care serves homeowners in Daphne, Fairhope, Foley, Gulf Shore, Loxley, Mobile, Saraland, and Spanish Fort, AL.
Sources:
Clemson Cooperative Extension, “Centipede Yearly Maintenance Program.”
Ibid, “Fertilizing Lawns.”
Grounds Maintenance Magazine, “Feast or Famine Fertility.”
