I burnt my lawn using fertilizer. What should I do?

Question

I used Scotts Turf Builder with plus 2 weed control, and i think it burnt my lawn. Patches of grass turned yellow overnight, and the patches arent small. What should I do.

Answer 1

I own a lawn BIZ! 1st of all, homeowners think they can save a few bucks doing it all themselves! WRONG! You probably didnt burn it up! It has to get over 80 to do damage with a homeowner product(for a few days). What you are seeing....is probably uneven spread of a fertilizer product! Its hard to kill grass this time of year! Scotts is a decent( i mean decent compared to what i buy) product, but what you need to know is how to use it! Sometimes, you need to learn! Look, its simple....if you dont know how to use any product correctly, your results may or will not be, what you desire! We can compare this to anything! Plumbing, Electrical, and so forth! Without seeing your yard I cant tell you what happened, just going off what i see and get calls for in my everyday experience! If! I and I mean IF!, you screwed something up within your grass, then you have to live with it! You cant fix over-fertilization! PERIOD! You would have to wait a few weeks then overseed those areas. There is nothing you can spread that will compensate for what you may have done! If you need any advice, or need direction, contact me! I will reply! [e-mail]

Answer 2

Hmmm....interesting. Unless your feeding device was set too high and/or you didn't follow bag instructions, the Scotts product is not likely to do that. Could it be that the patches of your lawn that went yellow are, in fact, broadleaf weeds? That's what Scotts TB II is designed to kill.

It could also be that your lawn is made up of a type of grass that Scotts includes in its list of plant types for which the Turf Builder II formulation is toxic. It may be that those patches will come back.

I would water heavily to try and flush the lawn of as much of the fertilizer as possible and not mow until the lawn is show signs of coming back and around two inches or more high. Look carefuly at the areas that were yellow and if they still have life, is the bottom half of the grass blade green, showing that the yellow part is growing out? If so, you've taken care of the problem.

If the patches of yellow eventually die but the rest of the lawn is intact, remove the lawn that was damaged and seed those sections with new grass. Cover thinly with a commercial mulch for such uses and water carefully until sprouted. By the end of the summer, you should have a pretty good start at fixing the damage.

If you want to hold Scotts accountable, take pictures of everything before you do any repair and then document with photos any improvements and write down what you did to achieve them. Then, mail the documentation to Scotts and, if you still have it, the zebra-code and batch number from the Scotts fertilizer bag. It could be a bad bag of fertilizer and if so, Scotts should compensate you for at least the cost of the fertilizer.

Hope that helps.

Answer 3

Water your lawn now and everyday for the next two or three days, make sure all the grass is getting about 1 inch per watering a day, it will come out of it, do not mow it for atleast two weeks. The best way is to prevent it from happening again, use a natural fertilizer that will not burn plants, no matter how much you apply. I use www.biosourcefertilizer.com. It works great.

Answer 4

RE:
I burnt my lawn using fertilizer. What should I do?
I used Scotts Turf Builder with plus 2 weed control, and i think it burnt my lawn. Patches of grass turned yellow overnight, and the patches arent small. What should I do.

Answer 5

I used Scotts Turf Builder with Plus2 Weed Control, followed all the directions and had some yellowing of my lawn. I called the Scott's number. I was advised to water the lawn 1/2 inch every other day for three weeks. If it doesn't improve, I was told to call them back and they would advise me further. We'll see.

Answer 6

Soak it good- & wait a week and see how bad the damage is. If the grass is TOTALLY gone in large patches- you're going to have to dig them out & reseed them. If there's still alittle grass left in them- they will gradually fill in by themselves over the Summer (By the way; are you SURE it was grass that was killed- & not green weeds??? It's VERY easy to underestimate the amount of weeds one can have in a lawn. You may have done the "right thing" -afterall, not realizing you didn't have much grass to work with in the first place). If you have to reseed- do it NOW- before the weather gets any warmer & drier. Good luck! :)

Answer 7

There's a number on the bag, I'd call them- they are really great with helping their customers, not like most customer service department. They actually sent my husband a booklet on the different products and when to use what---call them--- and if they for some reason changed their policies and are not helpful, the best thing would be to water it as much as possible to get the chemical off...........good luck.........oh, you can also go to home depot or lowes and ask them what to do......if you have a picture phone take a pix of the damage and ask them about it......if you didn't buy the turf builder from them, pretend you did.........good luck

Answer 8

Fertilizer Burn Grass

Answer 9

NIPS - You sound like you are lecturing your child over this issue. This person needs help not asking you to preach your knowledge of lawncare/fertilization to him. You sound a bit like a jerk!

Answer 10

I used Scotts fall grass food and holy ****...lots of yellow spots the next day. sure hope I can repair it with lots of water