What’s The Best Fertilizer for Your St. Augustine Grass Lawn?
In this video, Houston Grass Owner Michael Romine talks about choosing the best fertilizer for St. Augustine grass. Michael was raised in the family grass business, and he sells the high quality grass grown on his family farm in Bay City, TX. Call us at 281-431-7441.
Summary of the Best Fertilizer for St. Augustine Grass
What is the best fertilizer for St. Augustine grass? There really is no one brand name that’s the best fertilizer. You’ve got Scotts and Nitrophos and LESCO and there’s just a ton of them if you just go in the Lowes and Home Depot and in some of the specialty stores.
They’ve all got fertilizers and they tout them as having different attributes and what not. We just really recommend a balanced fertilizer meaning 15-5-10, the three numbers ( nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium) that are on every bag of fertilizer. They all have the same three ingredients.
We’ve Updated Our Fertilizer Recommendations
For a weed and feed for St. Augustine, Bermuda grass or Zoysia grass, we recommend Nitro-Phos Weed and Feed. You would generally put it out mid-February to mid-March in the Houston area. And you want to follow the directions on the back of the bag. The bag will tell you what setting to put it on according to the spreader that you have.
For a weed and feed for St. Augustine grass only, we recommend Nitro-Phos Weed and Feed with Atrazine. You do have to be careful because Atrazine is the active ingredient. I would not recommend using it year after year. It should not be used as a weed and feed on Bermuda grass or Zoysia grass. It could also be tough on your oak trees.
For spring fertilizer we recommend the Nitro-Phos Imperial lawn fertilizer. Imperial is the same exact fertilizer as the Nitro-Phos Weed and Feed products, but it just doesn’t have any weed killer in it. It will also be less expensive because it does not have any weed killer in it. It will give your yard a good boost for the springtime, which around the Houston area should be mid-February to mid-March.
Soil Sampling Can Tell You What You Need
The best thing that you can do is spend the money and take the time and do the soil sampling and send your dirt off to a lab that tests the dirt and can tell you what components need to be added back to it. But if you don’t do that we recommend a balanced fertilizer, which is like I said the 15-5-10, or Triple 13 or something like that.
That’s got a good balance of all three components in it. Not something, that’s got a very high first number, which is the nitrogen and a zero or something like that. A good balanced fertilizer with a slow release form of nitrogen is great. The slow release nitrogen is an important part of that too and I think that if you follow the directions on the bag, and put it out with your spreader as evenly as you possibly can and really pay attention to that with no more or less frequency than the bag recommends.
Nitro-Phos Superturf Fertilizer has both the quick release and slow release forms of nitrogen to keep your lawn green all summer long.
As far as timing we recommend at least two fertilizer applications per year for St. Augustine compared with maybe four to six applications per year for the Bermuda grasses to keep them as green as they possibly can be. If you do that and follow the directions, I think you’ll be fine regardless of brand name of fertilizer.
We now recommend a spring, summer and fall applications of fertilizer.
If you have questions about the best fertilizer for your grass — St. Augustine, Bermuda, or Zoysia — please call us for advice.
Houston Grass delivers top quality grass sod grown on the family farm in Bay City, TX. If you compare on the basis of quality and price, you’d buy your grass sod from Houston Grass. Call us at 281-431-7441 or use our contact form for more information.
Get Your Fertilizers at Houston Grass
We carry our recommended fertilizers, fungicides and insecticides at our office in Arcola. We only recommend products that we’ve tested over the years in the weather and with the grass varieties found in the Houston area. Call us at 281-431-7441 with your questions.