Fertilise Late Spring to Protect from the Summer Heat
Keep an eye on grass colour. It is still a little premature to apply fertiliser on all but the weakest lawns.
When couch and kikuyu go a little yellow, probably towards the end of November, will be the optimum time to apply fertiliser so that the grass can survive the hotter weather in December and January.
Be guided by the volume of clippings coming off each lawn. When they diminish will be the time to fertilise and also to raise the cutting height.
Many grasses that were literally growing out of their skins last month with a bit of rain and sunny days, have used up all their energy and depleted the food reserves stored in their roots, and are now thin and stringy.
Definitely fertilise these as soon as you can, but make sure that they are being irrigated. The few light rains that we might expect between now and Christmas are not sufficient to keep the grass growing