You know what they say: the grass is always greener when you use top-notch, expert-reviewed lawn fertilizer. Seriously though, if you want the greenest grass on your block, use fertilizer to give your lawn a little more "oomph."

Your grass will grow faster and be healthier than ever; that's if you use the right fertilizer. If you're unsure what the right fertilizer is for you, no worries, you've come to the right place.

This comprehensive guide includes in-depth reviews on the best lawn fertilizers of 2022 and informative purchasing tips that will help you weed through all the options.

BACKYARD BOSS TOP LAWN FERTILIZERS OF SPRING 2022

PRODUCT

FEATURES

Miracle-Gro All Purpose Lawn Food - $$title$$

Miracle-Gro All Purpose Lawn Food

  • Covers: 5,000 square feet
  • Type: Synthetic
  • NPK Ratio: 36-0-6

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Scotts Turf Builder Lawn Food - $$title$$

Scotts Turf Builder Lawn Food

  • Covers: 5,000 square feet
  • Type: Synthetic
  • NPK Ratio: 32-0-4

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Epsoma ELF20 Organic Lawn Food - $$title$$

Epsoma ELF20 Organic Lawn Food

  • Covers: 5,000 square feet
  • Type: Organic
  • NPK Ratio: 18-0-3

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Scotts Turf Builder Weed and Feed - $$title$$

Scotts Turf Builder Weed and Feed

  • Covers: 5,000 square feet
  • Type: Synthetic
  • NPK Ratio: n/a

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Simple Lawn Solutions Balanced Lawn Food - $$title$$

Simple Lawn Solutions Balanced Lawn Food

  • Covers: 3,200 square feet
  • Type: Synthetic
  • NPK Ratio: 16-4-8"

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Whatever your lawn care questions may be, Backyard Boss has the answers. We're like a wise, helpful neighbor that's there when you need us.

Best Lawn Fertilizer for Quick Results

Miracle-Gro All Purpose Lawn Food

    This multi-purpose fertilizer has rapid results for your lawn, making your grass grow quicker and healthier.

      Pros:

    • Inexpensive
    • Easy to apply
    • Water-soluble formula makes for good coverage
      Cons:

    • May not be safe around pets
    • Could burn your lawn

WHY WE LIKE IT: This easy-to-use Miracle-Gro product truly is miraculous, with lightning-fast results for your lawn.

This fertilizer product is specially formulated to provide just the right amount of nutrients to promote your grass's growth. The five pounds container covers up to 5,000 square feet of lawn because of its water-soluble design. It's long-lasting so you only need to feed your lawn every four to six weeks with it.

WHO SHOULD BUY IT: This multi-purpose fertilizer is a great option for people who want an effective, quick fertilizer to promote healthy grass growth in their lawn.

Best Lawn Fertilizer for Established Lawns

Scotts Turf Builder Lawn Food

    With high levels of nitrogen and a dash of potassium, this incredible lawn fertilizer works wonders on established lawns that need reviving.

      Pros:

    • Inexpensive
    • No phosphorus
    • Requires fewer feedings
      Cons:

    • Requires spreader
    • Could burn your lawn

WHY WE LIKE IT: One of the most recognizable names in fertilizers is Scotts Turf Builder, and this is one of their most effective fertilizers.

This lawn food revives your lawn, helping your grass build stronger roots which reduces how frequently it needs to be watered to be healthy. With plenty of nitrogen, this fertilizer produces lots of top growth quickly. It's good for warm and cool-season grasses, although it should be applied more gently on the latter.

WHO SHOULD BUY IT: With no phosphorous and plenty of nitrogen, this is the best fertilizer for established lawns.

Best Organic Lawn Fertilizer

Epsoma ELF20 Organic Lawn Food

    This organic lawn fertilizer is completely safe to use and encourages healthy grass growth.

      Pros:

    • Safe for pets
    • Long-lasting results
    • Can be used in any season
      Cons:

    • Expensive
    • Won't help grow new roots

WHY WE LIKE IT: If you want an organic fertilizer, Epsoma ELF20 Organic Lawn Food is one of the best options out there encouraging healthy, thick grass growth.

While it does take time to work since it's an organic product, it does work, making grassroots grow strong and deep and blades grow long, thick, and green. Because it's organic you won't have to worry about burning your lawn, poisoning water runoff, or hurting children and pets. While the current price is expensive, it's definitely worth it, transforming established lawns.

WHO SHOULD BUY IT: This organic fertilizer is perfect for people who have established lawns, want to encourage growth, and need a fertilizer that is totally safe to use.

Best Lawn Fertilizer for Weeds

Scotts Turf Builder Weed and Feed

    This high-quality lawn fertilizer will nurture your grass's growth while killing annoying weeds.

      Pros:

    • Clears out weeds
    • Satisfaction guarantee
    • Great for the springtime
      Cons:

    • Sometimes burns grass

WHY WE LIKE IT: This powerful lawn fertilizer by Scotts Turf Builder nourishes grass with healthy nutrients while clearing out dandelions, clovers, and other weeds.

The Weedgrip technology incorporated into this fertilizer's design enables it to attack weeds you can see and those that you don't. It quickly and easily clears out weeds while thickening your grass. With a satisfaction guarantee, you know you'll be impressed with this fertilizer's innovative formula.

WHO SHOULD BUY IT: If you want to boost your lawn's health during the warmer seasons, while also clearing away troublesome weeds, this is an excellent fertilizer to go with.

Best Balanced Lawn Fertilizer

Simple Lawn Solutions Balanced Lawn Food

    This completely balanced lawn fertilizer is full of key nutrients and some organic ingredients.

      Pros:

    • Balanced NPK ratio
    • Easy to use
      Cons:

    • Only covers a small area

WHY WE LIKE IT: With a perfect blend of key macronutrients, this Simple Lawn Solutions Balanced Lawn Food will leave your grass happy and healthy.

Its NPK ratio of 16-4-8 makes it excellent for nourishing all grass types, from Florida Palmetto to Kentucky Bluegrass. This liquid fertilizer works wonders on new lawns, providing lots of nutrients that promote healthy root growth. It's easy to apply and works quickly, so it's totally hassle-free.

WHO SHOULD BUY IT: This is the right fertilizer for people looking to promote healthy new grass growth with a safe, nutrient-rich formula.

How Does Lawn Fertilizer Work?

Bag of lawn fertilizer spilled out onto bright green grass.

If you live in a place where year-round plant growth is just a green dream, then using fertilizer could be a godsend for your parched, perishing lawn. The right fertilizers help your lawn grow big and strong, enabling the development of healthy roots and thick, green grass blades.

Why? Because fertilizer provides your plants and grass with the nutrients, minerals, and vitamins they require to survive and thrive. Fertilizer does for your lawn what multivitamins do for humans. If you're not getting enough of some nutrients, you take a multivitamin to stay healthy. The same goes for your lawn and fertilizer.

What Is in Fertilizer?

Most lawn fertilizers contain nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. The nitrogen helps your grass grow new blades. Phosphorus helps your lawn's roots by making them stronger and more resilient. And potassium keeps your grass healthy and free of disease.

The number that you see on bags of fertilizer represents how much of each of these nutrients is in the bag. For example, a 10-10-10 has an even ratio of NPK, or nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium (K is its element symbol).

When Should You Fertilize?

Before you purchase your fertilizer and apply it to your lawn you need to conduct a soil test. I know fertilizing is exciting, but you'll be so thankful that you waited and did the test. Soil tests not only reveal to you when you should fertilize your lawn, determining if it needs nutrients in the growing seasons, colder seasons, or even both, it also gives you information about what fertilizer you should purchase.

It will help you figure out which nutrients your soil is lacking, which will inform your purchasing decision since you'll want to get a fertilizer that's dominant in those nutrients. It will also tell you what quantity of fertilizer you should buy.

Types of Lawn Fertilizer

Strictly speaking, there are two different types of lawn fertilizer: organic and synthetic fertilizers. They are very different when it comes to factors like how long they take to work, how safe they are to use, and how effective they are in promoting healthy growth for your lawn.

Below are descriptions of each, along with their benefits and disadvantages so you can make an informed decision about which one is right for you and your lawn.

Organic

Organic fertilizers typically are made with natural ingredients like kelp, alfalfa, seaweed, and blood meal. Typically, organic fertilizers are slow-release, not working as quickly as synthetic fertilizer products because they aren't aided by anything artificial.

Because organic fertilizers use natural ingredients they are far more environmentally friendly than synthetic fertilizers which can release harmful chemicals into water runoff. They also are much safer to use on the lawns of homes that have children and pets since they won't harm either.

      Pros:

    • Better long-term effects
    • Eco-friendly
    • Requires fewer applications
    • Less chance of over-fertilizing
      Cons:

    • Expensive
    • Harder to apply
    • May attract bugs

Synthetic

Some of the most popular fertilizers available are synthetic because people love how inexpensive they are and how quickly they work. When it comes down to it, synthetic fertilizers are much more hassle-free than organic fertilizers, they're even easier to apply.

Synthetic fertilizers make good use of science to improve your lawn, providing you with an exact ratio of nutrients so you know specifically how the fertilizer will benefit your yard. However, they do tend to include some nasty ingredients occasionally, which can be unsafe for children and pets. Be sure to read the label of your fertilizer before using it to make sure it's safe, especially if you have kids.

      Pros:

    • Quick-acting
    • Exact ratios of nutrients
    • Inexpensive
    • Easy to find
      Cons:

    • Doesn't help your soil
    • Over-fertilization is easy
    • Could be toxic

To learn more about synthetic versus organic fertilizers, check out the video below!

Lawn Fertilizer Safety

Naturally, there are some safety concerns with using any fertilizer, whether it's precautions for your lawn, your pets, you, or the environment. To make sure that you stay safe while caring for your lawn, use the safety tips below with your fertilizer.

Wear Gloves

Among all the safety tips, this is the one that's the most important. You need to wear gloves while applying fertilizer, especially if you're using a synthetic product.

If your skin comes in contact with nitrogen, you could experience a chemical burn which is extremely painful. If you want to go the extra mile safety-wise, consider also wearing goggles while applying fertilizer to your lawn. As much as fertilizer on your skin may hurt, fertilizer in your eyes will be ten times worse.

Store Safely

Whether you're working with organic or chemical fertilizer, it's important to keep it away from children and pets while storing it. Consider putting it on a top shelf or somewhere else where children and pets will not be able to reach it.

A good place to store it is in a garden shed or your garage. It should be kept in a cool, dry place, so if you live in a region that gets extra hot during the summer, you may want to move the fertilizer to an indoor area.

Carefully Apply

As important as it is to keep your safety, your family's safety, and your neighborhood's safety in mind, you're also going to want to protect what you bought fertilizer for in the first place: your grass.

You certainly don't want to burn your grass, so follow the instructions on the bag to the letter. Over-fertilization can happen easily, especially with chemical fertilizers. Imagine how disappointed you'll be if you buy fertilizer to help your lawn and end up burning it.

Be Careful After Applying

Keep the possibility of runoff in mind while and after you apply fertilizer to your lawn. Once you fertilize your lawn, the chemicals are sitting on top of your lawn. So, keep pets and children off it until you've watered or it has rained, so the majority of those nutrients have settled into the soil or runoff in the groundwater.

How We Picked

Weeding through all of the available fertilizers on the market this year was no easy task, but our team feels certain that the five included in this comprehensive guide are the absolute best of the best.

In picking them we looked for fertilizers that were powerful and effective but that could also be safely used by people who have pets and children. We found fertilizers that were organic and synthetic to appease people who favored both types.

We also looked for fertilizers that would suit our reader's individual situations, including the best fertilizer for a lawn filled with weeds, the best fertilizer for an established lawn, and the best fertilizer for new lawns.

Overall, every choice we reviewed is one of the best fertilizers you'll find. They all shine in their own way, but the absolute best is...

Which Lawn Fertilizer Should You Get?

Our favorite fertilizer that we reviewed is the Epsoma ELF20 Organic Lawn Food. With all of the nutrients a lawn would need to flourish, and very minor drawbacks, this is the best fertilizer on the market. It works wonders on established lawns and is fairly easy to use.

Of course, if you are looking for a synthetic fertilizer or something that will work on new grass, go with one of the other incredible options reviewed in this guide. Let us know in the comments which fertilizer you decided on, and as always, if you found this grass guide helpful be sure to share it!