Fertiliser

Granular or liquid

Controlled-release granular feeds meter nutrient out over weeks and are the backbone of a maintenance program: one application, a long steady release, less risk of pushing growth faster than the lawn can carry. Liquids act quickly and are the better tool for a correction — a colour response, a recovery, or getting nutrient into a lawn whose roots are still shallow and cannot reach far for it.

Matching the feed to your turf

Turf variety changes the answer more than anything else. Couch and Kikuyu carry regular nitrogen well and need it to hold density under close mowing or wear. Soft-leaf Buffalo is easily overstimulated and usually wants iron for colour rather than more nitrogen for growth. Feeding all three the same way is how a lawn ends up either thin or surging. The differences are laid out in nutrient needs by lawn type.

Two practical notes. An uncalibrated spreader is the most common reason a good fertiliser produces a patchy result, because the number on the dial is a gate opening rather than a rate — worth ten minutes to calibrate once per product. And if you would rather not work out rates and timing yourself, a Lawn IQ plan sequences them against your variety, lawn size and suburb.