22 February 2024

Winter Lawn Feeding by Lily Meyers

Everything You Need to Know About Fertilisation in Winter by Lily Meyers

With Winter finally here, it’s time for all keen garden lovers to start thinking about their lawn care regime and what their first step will be. Not everyone realises that the key to a perfect garden in Spring is to start prepping as early as now. But this doesn’t just mean making sure it’s all evenly cut- fertilisation needs to come first.

When the air starts to get colder, garden growth enters a hibernation period called dormancy. This is how grass prepares to survive the low temperatures and means its growth rate reduces significantly. This doesn’t mean the roots aren’t alive however, which means that applying fertiliser will help your growth be stronger than ever come the warmer months.

The Benefits of Fertilising Your Garden

• More Greenery in Spring: By using fertilisers in Winter, grass will be greener and faster-growing. Because they store all the good nutrients they need, they’ll rapidly use these to shoot up earlier in the Spring.
• Protecting Your Plants: Feeding your plants routinely and early will help them by protecting from any garden pests and diseases. Damaging pathogens flourish when the grass isn’t well nourished.
• Sturdier Roots: The stronger the roots become, the more grass can photosynthesise, which will help it be sturdier as the years go on.

Which Fertiliser is Right for You?

Choosing the right fertiliser is one of the biggest decisions when compiling your lawn care routine. Because of the unpredictability of UK weather, you must be protected from all situations whether that’s heavy rain or thick frost. Slow releasing fertilisers are especially good for Winter as nutrients are introduced at a gradual rate. The best choices often have equal parts of elements like potassium, phosphate, and nitrogen.

Fertilisers tend to have high levels of nitrogen as it helps strong roots develop. But using too much can have the reverse effect and cause an outbreak of pests, even killing your plants altogether if left unchecked.

Phosphate and potassium also have beneficial qualities that can help with the protection of plants. Phosphate acts as the plant’s main ‘fuel,’ controlling sunlight and converting it into chemical energy for the plant’s metabolic processes. Meanwhile, potassium helps processes like nutrient transport within the plant and water management. Choosing the best fertiliser can be hard, especially when you don’t know what to look out for. It’s best to avoid options that are specific to other seasons, even if the benefits seem the same. Spring fertilisers for example shouldn’t be used in winter, due to their high levels of nitrogen.

These fertilisers are also known as “NPK” fertilisers and are shown in a 1:1:1 ratio. These three numbers form what is called the fertiliser’s N-P-K ratio — the proportion of three plant nutrients in order: nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). NPK fertilizers typically contain at least 3% N plus 5% P2O5 plus 5% K2O and at least 20% total nutrients.

Organic and Vegan fertilisers?

Gardeners are now starting to lean towards choosing organic and vegan fertilisers, which have their own set of perks for winter gardening. Using these instead of synthetic alternatives improves soil health by introducing different kinds of microbes. This in turn helps nutrient availability and water retention. This becomes especially important in winter when soil tends to get more compact, and nutrients may leach away. For those who want to make a conscious effort to be greener, this is a great start in the right direction.

Getting The Timing Right

You don’t want to start your preparations too early, like the beginning of Autumn as it can put growth in danger of being damaged by the winter weather that is to come, and they won’t be freshly protected. Leaving fertilisation too late can also have negative impacts. When soil freezes over, it’s almost impossible to get nutrients into the ground to help the growth. It’s best to keep an eye out for any drastic weather changes to come and base your schedule around that. Trusting your instincts can always come in handy with decisions like these. Some people are also sceptical about when to start mowing. If the weather is milder, and you can spend some time outdoors, begin prepping your lawn this way. By mowing when the forecast is mild, it’ll maintain the grass at an optimal length as well as remove leaves and other debris that have collected over the season.

If you’d like some more information on fertilisation or lawn care, you can contact us here.

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