After a very dry start to 2025, the summer season is just the opposite. According to the St John’s Water Management Brevard County receives 80 percent of its rainfall during the summer months.
If you’ve been here for a while, you know this translates into torrents of water from the sky washing across our yards, sweeping everything loose into the streets, storm sewers and out into the Lagoon and its tributaries. So, any fertilizer on the lawn doesn’t have a chance to help the plants, instead, it is swept along by the rain right into the Lagoon.
That’s why Brevard has ordinance banning the application of fertilizer on residential properties from June 1st to September 30th. Thousands of pounds of pollutants enter the Lagoon watershed from excess fertilizer application, causing algal blooms which kill seagrasses and other marine life.
For properties abutting our many surface water bodies, including the Lagoon, the fertilizer ordinance also prohibits application of fertilizer in a 15 foot “fertilizer free” zone along the shoreline. This restriction applies year-round, not just in the summer. If you fertilize your own yard, please follow these rules. If your yard is fertilized by a residential landscape company make sure they are licensed in Brevard County, which requires them to be trained on chemical applications to lawns and landscape.
