Especially lawns benefit from the promotion of soil life. We show important ingredients and how to use soil activator for lawns correctly.
A soil activator is used to revitalize and improve stressed soils - i.e. soils depleted of humus and soil organisms. Below you can find out what lawns need soil activator for and what you should consider when choosing and using it.
The soil under lawns is often anything but vital and he althy. Here you can find out how a soil activator can help and, if you choose the right product and use it correctly, can even reduce matting of the turf.
What does a lawn need soil activator for?
Flat and green, a lawn naturally lies at the center of most gardens. But what the creation of a lawn means for the ground below is clear to very few lawn owners: Because lawns are a permanent crop that consumes a lot and is very resource-intensive. The soil under the green therefore dries out easily in summer and is too often forgotten when fertilizing the lawn. As a rule, nutrients are constantly removed from the area by mowing - unless you use a mulching mower. In addition, fast-acting, mineral fertilizers are often used on lawns to achieve a strong green color. However, these also have a negative effect on the soil by boosting the decomposition of humus. After years of disregarding the needs of the soil beneath the lawn, he finally shows the following symptoms:
- The ground is hard and compacted
- The lawn becomes light because the compacted areas are difficult to root through
- The lawn dries out faster and needs to be watered more often
- The lawn growth is inhibited
- The turf matts faster because the soil life is not able to transport dead material into the soil and decompose it - so it has to be scarified more often
- Wild weeds that are more competitive than the lawn on compacted or dry sites are spreading
In fact, it is not the lawn that needs fertilization, but rather the soil underneath. Such soil fertilization is done with the help of a soil activator.
Tip: Your lawn is not growing well, although you have been fertilizing and caring for the soil regularly for several years? The lawn seed mix used may be the problem. A lawn is always made up of various different grass genera, species and varieties. The right mix, for example for a shady lawn, dry lawn or sports and play lawn, determines the he alth of a lawn in the long term. In our special article you will find information about which type of lawn makes sense and when.
The right soil activator for lawns: you should pay attention to this
Soil activators contain a lot of organic matter, main and trace nutrients, long-lasting forms of useful microorganisms, often lime and rarely some clay minerals such as bentonite. You can see which ingredient has which effect in the table below:
| Ingredient | Effect on the floor |
|---|---|
| Organic Matter | Carbon and thus energy source for soil organisms |
| Main and trace nutrients | Nutrient source for soil organisms, e.g. for building proteins, membranes, DNA and enzymes |
| Permanent forms of microorganisms | For recolonizing soil where microorganisms have been depleted |
| lime | To increase pH as beneficial soil bacteria multiply more at higher pH and are inhibited at low pH |
| Clay minerals | For the formation of clay-humus complexes with the humus molecules produced by soil fertilization |
Not every soil activator necessarily contains all the components mentioned. Especially soils that are not in a completely desolate condition can benefit enormously from the application of organic material alone. Here it can also be sufficient to regularly spread a thin layer of ripening compost on the lawn, rake it in and water it. However, severely affected soils cannot do much with this measure at first, since their activity is so reduced that they can hardly convert the freshly introduced structural substances. In this case, using a fully-fledged soil activator is the better alternative. When choosing, you shouldkeep the following in mind:
- A soil activator based on plant-based raw materials provides exactly the trace nutrients that your lawn can use and is more sustainable in production than a product based on animal raw materials. Added to this is the pleasant smell of the animal-free raw materials.
- The solid structural material is the most important part of a soil activator. Liquid soil activators therefore do not contain this.
- Granulated material is easier to dose and apply without creating dust.
Because we missed an animal-free and organic-certified soil activator, we developed our Plantura organic soil activator. It is granulated, so spreading it with a fertilizer spreader is not a problem. As a user, you can rest assured that our fertilizer has nothing to do with ethically questionable factory farming or wasting valuable resources. Nevertheless, it delivers exactly what revitalizes your lawn - or rather the soil underneath - and improves it in the long term.
Tip: There is another possible reason for a sparse lawn that is slow to regenerate. Lolium perenne, perennial ryegrass is usually used as undergrass. However, it is a little susceptible to frost. After severe winters, it may have been banned from the lawn entirely, leaving it very light. In this case, reseeding the lawn with the missing grass helps - combined with lawn fertilization, of course.
Application of soil activator for lawns
Because the amount of nutrients in a soil activator is small and is bound to the organic matter by the activity of microorganisms, there are no restrictions on its application. You don't have to be afraid of leaching or incorrect fertilization, as is the case with almost all organic fertilizers. The application of our Plantura organic soil activator is carried out as follows:
- When preparing the soil for a new planting, 150 to 200 grams can be raked into the top layer of soil. That's about the equivalent of a 10 liter bucket on 30 square meters.
- Existing lawns can be treated annually with 70 to 150 grams, i.e. about 5 to 10 liters per 30 square meters. The effect unfolds optimally if the soil activator is introduced into a freshly mown and scarified area in spring. Subsequent extensive wateringwashes the granulate into the ground and initiates the implementation process.
If you are looking for additional information about soil activators in general, you can find out more in this article.