Without fertilizer, a lawn will get thinner, become pressured by diseases and weeds, and eventually wither. There’s some confusion as to what a fertilizer is to the plant. First, it is not plant food. Plants make their own food by converting sunlight into a type of energy that can be used by the plant to grow. Fertilizers (both organic and processed) are nothing more than naturally occurring elements that the plant uses in various ways and in various parts of the plant. You can think of fertilizers as vitamins for the plant. That is, they are the basic building blocks used to process the food and water in a plant.

Applying fertilizer to your lawn makes sure that your soil has enough of these chemical elements. It is best to do a soil test every couple of years to determine exactly what your soil needs. Some soils have an excess amount of phosphorus and should not have additional phosphorus added. The goal of lawn fertilizer is to create a healthy environment for your lawn, and not, as some people seem to think, make the chemical companies rich.