Growmore for lawns

Is growmore fertiliser any good as a spring fertiliser for lawns

 

Hello and welcome.

Personally I use chicken poo pellets for just about all plant feeding, including the lawn. Its cheap, and its much harder to get it wrong. The chemical solutions tend to be quite potent, and if you get the mix or the quantity wrong, you can actually do more harm than good. With chicken poo pellets, they are much slower release, so even if you were to accidentally spill the whole bucket in one spot, you could just sweep it up and no harm would be done whereas the chemical ones, being much quicker release, can actually do damage if you accidentally overdose the plants/lawn with them.

 

Cheers for that, I'm all for cheap. So presumably you use chicken pellets in conjunction with other fertilisers. Do you happen to know what the NPK is of chicken pellets

 

I very rarely use other fertilisers, unless I can lay my hands on a good load of horse manure, because I'm a firm believer that if the soil is kept good through organic means (I'm not an organic gardener), then the plants will look after themselves.

I guess it depends what you're aiming for. Commercial growers like to get the NPK perfect for the highest yield of whatever they are growing, but then they also have to put in lots of effort in other areas. For example, for leafy stuff you want high nitrogen, but that promotes rapid but soft growth, which means you have to work harder to keep it disease and pest free. Too much hassle for me. I just figure if they the plants have everything the need in the soil, and have to work as nature intended in order to get it, then they'll do what they've evolved to do, and I can get away with less work

 

That sounds good enough for me. I am a big believer in soil quality and prefer the home compost , for most plants.

 

The one exception I typically make is for pot/container grown hungry plants, which get the occasional liquid feed, because being in containers, their roots cant cover enough soil to find what they need by more natural means.

 

Chicken pellet NPK is 4:2.5:2.3 . I have attached a NPK table of common fertilisers , I think this was posted on here by PeterS in 2011
For the record I used Wilkos lawn Fertiliser with seaweed extract , it seemed to do a good job . I hope they stock it again this year.

 

I just put pure Nitrogen on the lawn in Spring. Putting Growmore on is going to provide an NPK of 10-10-10 and most of the P and K is not going to be much use.

 

I'm not sure about that one Kristen, I'd have thought Nitrogen by itself maybe a bit severe, I don't know about that, if it works for you why not. Iv'e had that many problems with many bare patches on my lawn after making big efforts in the Autumn ,over seeding ,fertilising and lightly composting over with grass growing good as I thought. And then due to , I think, being unable to take any cuts off it because of all the rain and the grass getting to long and getting into a poor state. So I'm reluctant to put stuff on iv'e not used before, but thanks for the comments.

 

Up to you. If the ground is in good heart (from other treatments in the Autumn etc.) I can't see the grass needing much, except Nitrogen to sustain its growth. All I want is for it to green up nicely, and thicken up

http://www.lawnsmith.co.uk/ recommend (for my Clay soil) "Extra-LONG Lawn Feed" which is 26% Nitrogen, 0% Phosphate, 12% Potassium of which the Nitrogen is 30% quick release for instant impact, and the rest slow-release for the rest of the season. ... The slow-release (including Potassium) is over 6 months."

Pitch maintenance, where minimum growth is required but to aim is to create a harder grass,
would use something like Sportsmaster Spring / Summer which is 9-7-7 - so if that is what you want then Growmore (usually 10-10-10, but either way it is "balanced") would do, but personally that "hard growth" is not what I want from my lawn. If I had kids using it as a football pitch then maybe!
http://www.pitchcare.com/shop/everr...everris-sportsmaster-spring-summer-9-7-7.html
Golf courses, which want growth and will mow fairly frequently, would use something like Marathon Sport Spring which is 16-4-8 so predominantly Nitrogen.
http://www.sherriffgrasscare.co.uk/products.aspx?pname=Marathon-Sport-Spring&prodid=123&catid=63

Costs money to put the other macro nutrients on, and I'm not inclined to bother (I do in the Autumn though, to build up the roots for the Winter)

if you are not sure then get Green Thumb to give you a quote? They will figure out what is best for your lawn, and generally their prices are not that high (compared to getting the fertiliser yourself)

 

Other lawn care providers are available. Get a few quotes in from a few in your area.

 

Good point! Easy to get carried away as Green Thumb's name is so well known ...

 

Earlier today talking to a neighbour from further up the road, I told him of continuous problems with my front lawn, despite my efforts doing all the things I know, read up on and searched on websites and acting on the advice. To say nothing of the time & expense involved. It isn't an absolute disaster but not good enough after whats been done. Iv'e been involved with 4 different properties over the years and never had such a continuous problem. My neighbour had a surprise for me, he said he had had a total of 3 new lawns, and years of repairs and maintenance, 2 of them being turf incl Rololawn over a few years. In the end he paved over his his lawn. He said he had been a landscape gardener for years until bad health and lawns was a big part of his job, but he didn't sort the problem out. We both have back lawns that are in reasonable condition and require very little attention. In the footpaths on both sides of the road, Lindus (lime) genus TILIA line the streets, he thinks that possibly the sap that drops from this type of tree maybe the cause of the poor results. Quite a few other front lawns nearby have been paved.