Help!! I put down the wrong bag of fertizizer!

[m0i0k0e]

I posted this on the Homeowners forum, but I thought I might get a quicker response from the pro's!!


I went to home depot and thought I was buying 3 bags of Lesco Pre-Emergent fertilizer, but I accidentally picked up a brand name called All-American. It is Lawn and Garden Fertilizer 5-10-5 for lawns, vegetables and shrubs. The bag is the same color as the Lesco, and was mixed in with the Lesco! Anyway, I put it down with a Scott's "EdgeGuard" spreader at the setting of 6. It was a 40 lbs bag.

The question is, what do I do now that it's on my lawn? Do I put the Lesco Pre-Emergent down which is 19-0-7 or do I have to wait until a certain amount of time has passed? The problem is, I put that bag on one side of my lawn and the correct Lesco stuff on the other side!! I know, I should have looked more closely.

All American - Fertilizer (All ready on lawn):
5% Nitrogen
10% Phosphate
5% Potash

Lesco Pre-Emergent(want to add to the lawn):
19% Nitrogen
0% Phosphate
7% Potash

If I add it now I would have a total of:

24% Nitrogen
10% Phosphate
12% Potash

Can I do it?

This is a bad way to start of the season....
Thanks for your help in advance.

[David Grass]

depends on the WIN (water insoluble nigtrogen) content if any. If it has WIN, then the Nitrogen will be really slow released, so I think you could overlap it now with a lighter than average coverage. Most cheap fertilizers DO NOT have WIN, so it saturates very quickly with the first big rain,and could burn your lawn. Someone else may have a better idea or opinion tho.

[Bluegrass 1]

The 5-10-5 put down in early spring will not hurt anything. To keep from stripping ,I would spread it on the rest of the yard, and sharpen
the blades on your mower because you will be cutting every 5 days
for 3 weeks.

[turfsurfer]

moiokoe, poor responses so far to your questions. You did not say how large your yard is but a 50# bag of Lesco 19-0-7 with either Dimension(best) or Pre-M should cover around 11,000 sq ft at about .8 lbs nitrogen per 1000 sq ft. Assuming the bag of other stuff went down at the same rate, it should cover around 9,000 sq ft of yard (40 lb bag). If you can find a Lesco service center around you or if the local Home Depot also carries the Lesco yellow bags in the 13-2-5 formulation, you could put that down over the other stuff that you mistakenly bought and you will end up with pretty close to an even application. Again any differing percentages of slow release may throw things off a bit but not too much. There are a lot of numbers and the calculations can be confusing but the short answer is you probably did not do any lasting harm to the lawn. Good luck, and remember sometimes it's better (and cheaper in the long run)to just hire a reputable local company if you're not sure what you are doing.