Moved into this home (in the Boise, Idaho area) at the end of May.
Fertilized for the first time around August 1st.
Currently watering the lawn for 25 minutes each zone two times a day (6 AM + 8 PM).
What’s happening here? Do I need to apply more fertilizer or something? It’s looking good in lanes but not everywhere. Do I need a different spreader? The one we have is pretty cheap.
To be clear, I’m pretty new to lawn care since growing up we had artificial grass. I’ve had some lawn experience when renting, but never really cared about those lawns. Now I’ve got kids and my own lawn so I want to make it look nice.
by Honest-Scarcity-7992
17 Comments
Scott’s Spreader?
This is a meme at this point
Did you by chance use a spreader with deflectors ? Something we use for salting walkways. I’m visioning more fertilizer was dropped on sides of spreader. Flip deflectors up if so, and let it fly next time
You have a Scott’s spreader, right? It has hollow wheels and the fertilizer gets collected in the wheels and then leaves these lines as it spills out of the wheels. Either buy a better spreader or you can put cardboard over the wheels to keep fertilizer out for a short term solution.
Don’t water at night.
That is quite some watering for mature looking grass
Hello from Meridian. Yep, it’s your spreader.
Ignoring the original question for a minute here: Is OP likely watering too much? Because if not, I’m definitely watering too little then!
50 minutes per day seems too much. Every other day maybe.
Scotts spreader? 🤔
In general it’s better to water for longer periods of time in the morning, before the heat hits, a few times a week. The water will soak into the soil more and cause the roots to grow deeper to reach for it. Watering at night can be a recipe for fungus. Look up the tuna can method for determining how much water your sprinklers are putting down over a given period of time. When it’s scorching out and it hasn’t rained in a while you may need to put down 2″ of water or more a week. In the spring/fall, 1″ a week should be all that’s needed.
As everyone else mentioned, scotts spreaders are notorious for having granular fertilizers getting caught in the wheels which will cause those streaks.
Looks like Idaho. You grass is desperate for nitrogen. It also looks like new sod so you need to spoon feed fertilizer. Something with a little potassium in it would do wonders here
How they still sell that spreader is beyond me. I guess enough noobies (no offense to OP) buy em that HD keeps em stocked.
Dude you wanna know what’s crazy. I knew this was Boise idaho just by looking at the photos lol. Then I clicked on it and read your description haha
Aliens
Beam em up Scotty
You need another application of fertilizer with a decent spreader. I would recommend doing a soil test as well