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.
Use your savings and spend your time enjoying your summer vacation. You can still have a beautiful yard. Click on helpthelagoon.org/how-you-can-help/ to find out what you can do to have beautiful yards more suited to our semi-tropical climate.
Also, The University of Florida has a whole website devoted to Florida-Friendly Landscaping (https://ffl.ifas.ufl.edu/). They have informative resources and seminars to help, as well as Master Gardeners and horticultural experts that can answer gardening questions, take soil samples and coach on combatting weeds and pests.
To learn more about what you can do to help the Indian River Lagoon Lagoon, visit: www.HelpTheLagoon.org and www.facebook.com/BIRLC/.
The Brevard Indian River Lagoon Coalition is a leading, independent advocate for a healthy Lagoon. The non-profit, non-partisan Coalition brings together organizations, businesses and individuals who share the goal of supporting restoration of the Lagoon.
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