A friend of mine recently used a weed and feed product on her lawn and she was telling me that it had left some black burnt marks all over her lawn.
Lawn weed and feed products are often available as powder or pellets from many garden centers, DIY shops, and you can even find cheaper basic versions in the supermarkets.
If you don’t follow the instructions precisely you may end up like my friend with a lawn which not only did not benefit from the treatment but was in fact damaged by the powder. The key thing with this type of product is watering and this is why it is usually recommended to apply the weed and feed pellets just before rain is forecast.
What do you do if your lawn has been damaged by weed and feed?
Unfortunately the manufacturers often don’t include tips on the box on how to improve your lawn when things go wrong. And yet this happens to many of us – especially when the rain fails to show!
In my experience the best thing that you can do is to water your lawn generously. This will allow you to dilute the effect of the weed killer and fertilizer and help your lawn recover from the chemical stress. After a while your lawn will recover and grow back to its former glory.
I didn’t have any further tips to provide to my friend on this occasion but if you know how to make it better, please leave a comment!
Thanks for this great information! I think an increasing number of people will be turning toward your website and other gardening websites, as people with no gardening experience plant wonderful recession gardens around the USA (possibly worldwide).
I have a beautiful, mostly weed free lawn. I have never used chemicals or feed, nor do I ever water it. My secret? A mulching mower. (OK, and handpicking some weeds every Spring)
I cannot emphasize enough the benefits of a mulching mower, I just know that this is the third lawn, each one being in a completely different climate, and I have had grass to brag about within 2 years. In the summer it goes dry and brown if there is no rain, but once the rain comes back in the Fall, it revives quite nicely and looks better every year.
Oh my god ,this weed and feed is screwing up my lawn too, I thought I would try it but now its turning brown ,all you could do is water it? HELP
Lawn weed and feed requires a fair bit of watering indeed and that’s the only solution that I know to sort out any issue with it. I suspect that cheap lawn weed and feed granules don’t dissolve so well and therefore are more likely to create issues with the lawn.
So may be a good alternative would be to use a liquid lawn and feed which is less likely to burn the grass leaves as it dilutes easier.
Don’t worry after a little while, once your grass has grown and after a few cuts your lawn should be back to normal. Good luck from Mygarden diary.