Hi Korey

General fertilizers are good for your lawn and environment if they are
spread properly and watered in. I don't like to use weed and feed
products.

You can use a regular fertilizer on your lawn. I reccomend CIL Golf
Green. This is a slow release product which will feed over an extended
period of time.

In the auttumn use CIL winterizer to harden the grass for winter and
increase disease resistance.

Water it in well. Your son can play on the lawn after the watering
with out any ill effects.

It would take one hour with a fertilizer spreader to fertilize all of
your lawn and 6 hours of watering to water it in.


There are no nutrients in compost and it needs free Nitrogen to
decompose. Plus it would be very expensive to buy four dump truck
loads every year. The labour of spreading and working in the compost
would entail 3 days work.


Do not use Weed and feed if you have no weeds. I reccomend that you
use 2' 4-D according to the instructions if you have weeds in the
lawn.

A lawn service company will do an excellent job of weed control and
fertilizing. The grass is safe to play on after it dries.

Derryl Killan


Horticulturalist



Hi all-

I hope I'm not going to start a big mess, but I had a question. I've
read lots about the opinion of many in this group that the pesticides
used by lawn services and in Weed and Feed products are bad news. I
don't need to be sold on that one; I have a very young son who will be
playing on that grass next year, and whether 2,4D's danger is confirmed
or not, I don't plan to take any chances. Regarding danger, is the
same true for the actual granular fertilizer (without weed/insect
treatments)?

I've read up on organic gardening as well, and what I've read indicates
that I should build healthy dense turf to choke out weeds (a
no-brainer). They recommend applying 1/4 to 1/2" of compost to the
lawn twice a year as fertilizer. I've got 12,000 sq ft of lawn though,
and by my figuring that's about 20 to 40 cubic yards of compost each
year. I don't want to say that's infeasible, but that's still several
trips by delivery truck (or several more in my pickup) each time, not
to mention the expense. Is the general consensus that chemical
fertilizers themselves are bad, or is it the herbicides and
insecticides that often accompany them?

Thanks,
Korey