In 2005, my husband and I were looking to buy a house and the thing that mostly attracted us to houses was the front and the back yards. We were looking for a house with beautiful, well maintained lawn, because we both love working around the house and spending time outside, whenever the weather permits. After moving in that spring, we started discovering things that we never knew about lawns before. We started spending more and more time at Home Depot discovering the available products that we need in order to make our front and back yard grass look nice and always green. It was then when we knew the importance of lawn fertilizers.
Lawn care has always been important to house owners. It helps in the curb appeal of the house. Taking care of the grass requires the use of fertilizers. Chemicals are the most common fertilizer people use, because it has fast results on the growth and appearance of the lawn. Gardeners have had confusion over the use of organic or chemicals. The question raised is which one makes the grass greener and healthier. Actually, the grass doesn’t recognize the difference between what is organic and what is not. It will grow as long as it finds the proper nutrients in the product applied.
Chemicals are called “synthetic fertilizers”. They are made by man into salt compound containing nitrogen, potassium, calcium and magnesium. These nutrients are very important for plant growth. Nitrogen sources such as ammonia, ammonium sulphate and urea come from the natural gas and oil industry. For the fertilizer industry, chemicals are easily provided and easily manufactured like any other product.
Chemicals have a main advantage. The nutrients found in them are immediately available for the plants and are calculated to provide the right amount needed by the grass, which helps it grow continuously thick and green. They are the fastest way to have beautiful and green yards for your children and pets to enjoy. Grass is the most important part in the curb appeal of a house, which requires the need of fast growth and insect protection products. It is easy to apply by using a spreader. You don’t have to have so many applications, because one application per month or two is enough for the lawn to grow thick, healthy and green. Insecticides products are also easy to apply. Sometimes one application a year can be enough to repel or kill many kinds of insects. Also one chemical product could have the defense against many kinds of insects, but now lawn fertilizers contain the required insecticides for the protection of the lawn, which save us time.
Chemical fertilizers also have many disadvantages to the lawn, our environment, and our health. If those products are heavily applied to our lawn, they burn its roots and kill the plant. During heavy rain they penetrate deep into the soil. As the roots are very thin and short, it makes it impossible for the plant to get the nutrients in the fertilizer or even store some. Overly applications of the manufactured fertilizers can create toxic concentration of salt in the soil, therefore chemical imbalance, which is harmful to the plant. By forming chemical imbalance, this toxic concentration kills so many insects that are good for the health of our lawn and help in the defense against other harmful insects. The toxic concentration can also evaporate and spread into the air, which affects the health of our kids and pets. We and our pets can catch the existed chemicals applied to the lawn, which can spread different diseases.
So many reasons make us think of something other than chemicals to make our lawn look pretty. Why not use organic fertilizers, as long as they have the same results of chemical fertilizers? Organic fertilizers can be found in plants, animals or their waste. They come from the manure of cows, sheep, horses and also poultry. These nutrients can also be found in the green manures coming from falling tree leaves and dead plants. Organic fertilizers have beneficial micro-organisms that speed up decomposition of trimmings. It also improves the structure of the soil. They also come from the recycled nature waste. They are not harmful to insects, pets or human.
Many people prefer chemical over organic fertilizers, because they have quicker results on the grass. As organic products have fewer nutrients, they require more applications and even more work and wasted time. Organic fertilizers are more expensive, and they are not provided in immense variety like the chemical fertilizers. Some work should be done by our government to force the production of organic fertilizers and stop that of chemicals. After all, our health and environment are more important, even if we have to put more time into lawn care.