It’s been a hot and stormy summer here in Massachusetts. How’s your lawn doing? So much depends upon the unique microclimate of your lawn. If you have rich soil with lots of nutrients, the odds are pretty good that your grass is holding up well to 2024’s tough conditions. On the other hand, if your soil isn’t so great, your grass may be having a difficult time.
How do you transform poor soil into great soil?
Let’s talk about soil amendments and fertilizer. Soil amendments are products used to treat your soil’s physical condition. For example, if your soil is very dense with no room for effective grass root penetration, soil amendments would be used to address that issue. Soil amendments are used to improve your soil’s quality over the long term, conditioning it to become a more favorable growing environment. Not every lawn in the West Roxbury area needs soil amendments, but many do.
Fertilizer, on the other hand, is required multiple times a year on each and every lawn in the region. Fertilizer is nutrition plants use immediately to achieve impressive growth. The fertilizer gets used up as the plant grows. When it’s gone, more fertilizer is required. This is very similar to how eating breakfast gives you the energy to start the day, but later on, you’ll need some lunch to stay strong.
In this part of Massachusetts, it’s a good best practice to fertilize three times a year. The first fertilizer application should be in the spring, at the start of the growing period. The second fertilizer application should be now, mid-summer, to help the grass endure through the hottest’ part of the year. The final fertilizer application should be in September or October, to ensure the lawn has sufficient nutrition to endure all winter long.
