Seasonal fertilizer restrictions begin for five Central Florida counties on June 1, which also marks the official kick-off of hurricane season.
During Florida’s rainy season, fertilizer can wash off lawns and into water bodies, bringing nitrogen and phosphorus pollution along with it. Those pollutants can reduce water quality, including by breeding harmful algal blooms or HABs.
In Brevard, Lake, Orange, Seminole and Volusia counties, local rules prohibit the use of fertilizer containing nitrogen or phosphorus from June 1 until September 30. Within each of those counties, there are municipalities with their own respective fertilizer ordinances, including all 16 municipalities in Brevard.
Although Orlando also has a fertilizer ordinance in place, “it is less strict than the Orange County ordinance, so the county ordinance should be followed,” according to the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Florida (UF/IFAS), which maintains a database of all local fertilizer rules in the state.
UF/IFAS urges all in Florida to follow those local rules, and has extensive resources available to help ensure residents and landscape professionals alike know how to fertilize appropriately.
In addition to seasonal fertilizer rules, some Florida counties also have certain fertilizer restrictions in place that apply year-round. For example, no fertilizer can be applied at all within Brevard County’s 15-foot “fertilizer free” zone along the shoreline, according to the nonprofit Brevard Indian River Lagoon Coalition.
