Chemicals and Commercial Landscaping - Fertilizers

As we said yesterday, ask any landscaper whether they prefer organic or chemical fertilizer, and chances are you’ll be in for a lively debate. However, if you could ask your plants the same question, you’d find out that they really just don't care – nutrients are nutrients.

Today we look at chemical fertilizers in terms of nutrient availability and the long-term effects on soil, plants, and the environment.

Chemical Fertilizers

Chemical fertilizers have been refined to extract nutrients and bind them in specific ratios with other chemical fillers. These products may be made from petroleum products, rocks, or even organic sources. Some of the chemicals may be naturally occurring, but the difference is that the nutrients in chemical fertilizers are refined to their pure state and stripped of substances that control their availability and breakdown, which rarely occurs in nature.

Advantages of Chemical Fertilizer:

Since nutrients are available to the plants immediately, improvement occurs in days.

They are highly analyzed to produce the exact ratio of nutrients desired.

Standardized labeling makes ratios and chemical sources easy to understand.

They are less expensive.

Disadvantages of Chemical Fertilizer:

Chemical fertilizers are primarily made from non renewable sources, including fossil fuels.

They grow plants but do nothing to sustain the soil. The fillers do not promote life or soil health, and even packages labeled “complete” do not include the decaying matter necessary to improve soil structure.

Because the nutrients are readily available, there is a danger of over fertilization. This not only can kill plants but upset the entire ecosystem.

Chemical fertilizers tend to leach, or filter away from the plants, requiring additional applications.

Long-term use of chemical fertilizer can change the soil pH, upset beneficial microbial ecosystems, increase pests, and even contribute to the release of greenhouse gases.

Can a shot of chemical fertilizer make your containers spill over with blossoms, and give you the greenest looking landscape? Absolutely. Just be sure you understand what’s really happening to the earth under your feet. 

More importantly you can let Greens Keeper Landscape Maintenance do all the landscape work for you and take the burden off your shoulders all together.  Give us a call at 623-848-8277 and let’s talk about it.

Presented by:
Greens Keeper Landscape Maintenance, LLC
623-848-8277
http://www.commerciallandscapecare.com
greenskeeperllc@cox.net