Best lawn weed and feed[UK] – kill lawn moss without harming your pets

Evergreen 4-in-1 lawn feed and weed is probably my favourite choice right now. There’s loads of good reasons but the main one is how quickly it handles moss and it marginally edges better than Miracle-Gro’s offering on quantity, which is the next review.

You will start to see moss turn brown or even black in a matter of days. My personal experience was two days and that’s rapid! Weeds did seem to take a little longer but not much more than a week from the point of spreading.

It uses SmartWater technology that’ll help your grass absorb and hold onto as much of the available water as possible. Naturally, in a drought or hot summer cycle, this will considerably improve your chances of holding a lush green grass.

From a price point, you treat 400m2 with this product and that’s not stretching it thin. I had no problem at all treating a medium sized garden with one box. If you have a big garden then of course it’ll mean more packs but overall, it lasts well and works out super value based on the resulting lawn.

My personal preference is to use a spreader but not before I use a scarifier/aerator. This is the best way to get great results quickly if your lawn is looking a little worse for wear. A spreader really makes sense for an even and through application. The old method of tossing by hand is primitive at best when you can buy a spreader for £20.

There’s a couple of things to watch out for. Once you’ve spread the mix and watered in. I would highly recommend taking a close look to ensure all granule has dissolved in. The product itself contains Iron Sulphate. This can give your pets a rash or itchy skin as well as being linked to gastrointestinal problems but these are extremely rare and on the whole a safe product. This study shows Iron Sulphate is an irritant for the eyes, skin, and respiratory tract and not linked to anything major so you should have no fear if you follow the instructions as I have mentioned here.

Needless to say keep the kids away as well until all compound is dissolved in and gone. I normally treat the lawn lightly twice myself with a gap of around 10-14 days. I find this is ample time if watering regularly to dissolve the formula.

Try not to be overzealous if you apply by hand or similar. You’ll end up with brown patches if you over apply the mix. This is why I prefer a spreader so much more so it’s bulletproof.

The other thing to watch for is timing. You want to get this in the ground now. It’s May and ready for you to start looking after the lawn. There’s no excuse given the free time most of us have right now…

This is practically the same product as my top choice but lost due to my top pick having ten percent free. There’s not really any difference between them and this is a cracking product too. If my top pick was out of stock then I would go for this.

I am a bit of a contrarian though as this is actually the top seller. My opinion is this is selling better because there are more package size options. So for example, if you only need 200m2 then Miracle-Gro caters for this. That’s the only logical reason to not bag the additional extra value for money in my mind.

I just prefer extra value for money. There’s no other loopholes here and the same application applies. I would say one extra thing. It would be a thing of beauty if you could time application with rain following after for a couple of days. That would get the mix into your grass roots and away from your pets paws.

I would say expect to see solid results within a month if you follow the right lawn care tips as set out in the linked segment of this article. The sales says seven days but my experience is a quality lawn takes time and effort. If you do things in the right order then you can come good.

Westland’s all in one feed, weed, and moss killer is a brilliant product. It’s only not my top pick down to price. The cost of the two offerings above work out to be as much as 25% better value for money. It claims to be high in Nitrogen content to control growth. Unless things have changed in the last batch, it’s 10%. By contrast, the EverGreen Complete 4-in-1 Lawn Care is 14% so actually, EverGreen has this product edged and it’s cheaper.

There’s not much to choose between this and the top product though. It operates in exactly the same way. It has the same warnings and the same instructions. There’s no point in repeating myself so simply read the EverGreen 400sqm Complete 4-in-1 Lawn Care to understand the benefits and pitfalls of this product. They all work on the same chemicals. If you treated your lawn with any of these three products you’ll be more than happy with the results.

One thing worth thinking about, if you have a large garden, getting a couple of these delivered is a super win. Lugging these out the garden centre isn’t the best of jobs, especially when they weigh 17kg! Thank goodness for home delivery these days.

Now is as good a time as any to introduce a value pick for best lawn weed and feed. The Greenforce G21086 Green Force Lawn Feed Weed Moss Killer covers 400m2 making it much cheaper than the competition, or at least that’s what it says on paper. Let’s dig in a bit shall we? 

Application is as usual super easy. Personally I’d use the lawn spreader on larger areas. Bit of a cheat but still, isn’t lawn weed and feed just that? 😀

Make sure you don’t apply this if your lawn is too dry, it won’t break down and in properly. Ideally the lawn is a bit moist and soft helping to take the nutrient rather than a downpour resulting in it running straight off! Not ideal obviously. Apart from that, make sure to keep your kids and pets out the way following the instructions which by the way are minimal and you are good to go!

However there are some whom have complained this has done more damage than good. You’ll always hear people saying to weed and feed separately. and to some extent there is truth to it but I must admit I’ve never had these negative reactions to my lawn, in fact I throw it on and water in then forget. Almost all times my lawn has come up better over a two month course so I’m not sure how some get these poor results but still reasonable to mention!

Using a liquid weed and feed is certainly a quicker way to get things done. The Vitax is super simple. Add about 10ml per litre and use a decent watering can with a fine rose. Don’t overdo it, 5 litres a time is easy to handle and will help you cover about 10m2 of lawn. It won’t take long to get round a 200m2 lawn this way. If you’re feeling stronger maybe up it to 10 litres which will give you 20m2 of coverage. You want to add 100ml of Vitax to 10 litres just in case that helps.

To get this liquid weed and feed to do its job well, give it a few days at least since you’ve just your grass, and then once applied, give it a couple of days before you cut again. That’ll give the maximum chance of absorption.

You’ll get the best results from scarifying a few days before but otherwise this will give you great looking lawn improvements in two weeks. A lot of people won’t use any other product after using liquid Vitax. That says plenty about this handy liquid version.

To give a balanced argument though, there’s been a few reports of this not working out as well as it should. With that said, it’s a great product and a shame the price has shot up recently. This scored big when it was half the price it is currently.

I thought I would add Elix Gardens Complete Lawn into the mix because this is a great comparison to the Westland product. It also has 10% Nitrogen content and given the value for money factor it appears to be a great pick. The Phosphorus pentoxide content is the same at 2% too so this is a very similar lawn weed and feed.

The active weed killer ingredients include Dicamba and Mecoprop which are pretty common in agriculture and shouldn’t be too much of a concern, especially if you follow the instructions properly.

If you have a large garden the 20kg bag is a great buy and on par with EverGreen 400sqm Complete 4-in-1 Lawn Care for value. I still prefer the Evergreen though.

In terms of application, for every kilo you load into your spreader, you should expect to cover around 30m2. This will be plenty to produce a beautiful lawn though be patient, results can take up to a couple of months. One trick I think works very well is to actually half feed then a couple of weeks later top up. I feel far more nutrient makes it into the grass this way.

Like any lawn weed and feed, get your doses right as you can damage your lawn as you’ll find out in our guide that’s coming right up!