Although you take care of your grasses carefully, they suddenly die or brown after you fertilize your lawn. How to reverse lawn fertilizer burn?
Stop worrying because you’re in the right place! In this article, gardening101.net will show you the best method to recover burnt grass from fertilizer and some useful tips to reduce the risk of fertilizer burn.
What Does Fertilizer Burn Look Like?
First, how can you know you have a burnt lawn with the naked eye?
Well, fertilizer burn is the phenomenon of chemical reaction that causes burning or scorching of plant or grass foliage.
The hallmark of fertilizer burns is that the grasses turn dark yellow or brown. At the same time, the roots may be damaged too.
In addition to discoloration and searing, you can also recognize fertilizer burn in grass by yellow streaks that appear abnormally on the lawn after fertilizing.
Do you know what the cause of fertilizer burn in grasses is?
Fertilizers contain a lot of nutrients and mineral salts that help plants or grass grow properly. However, improper fertilization will lead to contradictory consequences.
Because of containing nutrients, overfertilizing will make grasses be poisoned with nutrients. Besides, large amounts of mineral salts will absorb water from the weeds which makes them sear. These reasons will cause trees to die.
Symptoms of fertilizer burns can occur one to two days immediately after fertilizing or even one to two weeks if you use slow-release fertilizers.
How To Reverse Lawn Fertilizer Burn?
Your lawn looks awful now, but don’t worry. We will start to recover your burnt grasses step by step now!
Check Your Dead Grass
Firstly, check your burnt lawn grasses. You wonder why?
Because fertilizer burns on grass have many different levels and the lightest level is only the vegetative level burns, that means the grassroots are still livable and can continue to grow.
If the roots are still healthy and can grow more, all you need to do is watering them. Moreover, you can use lawn mowers to cut off the blade of burnt grass.
Provide Your Burn Lawns With Water
The main cause of fertilizer burn in grass is that they are dehydrated. As we mentioned before, too much mineral salt makes the grass dehydrated and withered. Therefore, providing sufficient water for the lawn is a prerequisite.
Due to saving a few inches of water, you will probably receive the result as dead grasses. Remember to watering your entire lawn more often, especially when it is over-fertilized.
Moreover, regular watering will dilute and wash away the amount of excess fertilizer in the soil which helps the grass recover quickly.
Reconsider The Burnt Grass
After a week of regular watering, reconsider your grassroots again to ensure that you’re not wasting time.
Observe the changes in your grassroots thoroughly after one watering week: Are there any recovery signs or not? Are they be verdant again?
If there are no positive signs of grassroots revival, you have to accept that your lawn is incurable, and what you should do is have a growing vegetation again.
Till And Rake The Burnt Areas
As your lawn can’t recovery, you should throw them away. First, rake your burnt yard. Raking is a very effective scientific method, it will help you take away burnt grass and retain some lush roots.
After raking yet, you should continue to till land right after. Why? Because tilling the affected areas will help the soil become more porous, easier to absorb nutrients. Also, when grown on porous soil, grass will absorb water more efficiently.
Remember to collect the dead grass to discard and don’t leave it on the land as it makes new seeds hard to grow.
Seed Or Sod Again
With the ground you have, you can seed or sod again. Depending on the care capacity as well as the size of the soil, you can choose different types of seeds.
Make sure you sow seeds properly and deep enough so that plants or grass can grow well. Regardless of the seed of any plant or grass, remember to follow the manufacturer’s instructions for use.
Watering Your Lawn Or Garden
New grass seeds need enough moisture and sunlight to grow, so remember to watering your new lawn.
One week after growing or when your grasses are tall about three inches, you should cut off the blade of grass. Cutting will stimulate new grass to grow faster.
From all of the above, you’re wondering “How long does it take for fertilizer burn to go away?” ? There is no specific answer to this question because it depends on the lawn grass situation.
If the grassroots are still fresh and livable, the recovery period will last from 1 to 2 weeks. On the other hand, if they are dead, then you need to reseed new grass, which will take about 2 to 3 weeks.
Tips To Prevent Fertilizer Burn
Do you know how to prevent fertilizer burn or reduce the risk of fertilizer?. If you don’t, keep reading to check out the answer!
Choose Proper Fertilizer Types For Lawn Grasses
To reduce the risk of fertilizer burn, you have to consider and choose the proper fertilizer types for your lawn.
Three significant nutrients that your grasses need are nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). Different proportions of nutrients will create different types of fertilizer so that you should determine the type of your grass and consult the seller about suitable fertilizers.
In addition to chemical fertilizers, you can also consider organic fertilizers that have natural ingredients and safer for your home grasses.
Follow Fertilizer Instructions
Following the manufacturer’s instructions is what you should do when using any fertilizers. Pay attention to the instructions for diluting with water and the frequency of use.
Conjecture The Amount Of Fertilizer For Using Time
You have to estimate the size of your lawn or garden to measure the amount of fertilizer you should you for each time to reduce the ability of overfertilizing.
This is an essential step because an inappropriate amount of fertilizer is the main cause of death or fertilizer burn in grasses.
Adjust Your Fertilizer Spreaders Or Sprayers
Make your fertilizer spreaders work at an appropriate rate and rotate evenly in all directions in entire lawns.
It would be best if you avoided spreaders spinning at an uneven speed or focusing on a specific area so that an unevenly fertilized lawn can also cause burnt grass.
Bottom Lines
Having burnt grasses is something quite terrible but never is too late to improve it! Now, have you got your own answer for “how to reverse lawn fertilizer burn”? With our guide above, hopefully, you have understood clearly the repairing method as well as got useful lawn care information.
Last but not least, don’t forget to apply our tips to your lawn fertilizer burn now!