The lawn services people pump tons of Nitrogen onto the grass. This does three things: 1)It makes the grass a deep forest green, 2)it stresses the daylights out of the grass, thus making it less drought tolerant and dependent on a constant heavy, artificial feeding, and 3)it poisons the underlying aquifer.

Most homeowners over-fertilize everything. At this time of the year, you don't need it because of the rains. Fertilzer should be applied in October, March and June. And really, you could probably skip June and still have good results. Use less than half of what it says on the bag.

I use a mix of 12-6-8 with minors and I only fertilize large palms and trees. Nothing for the shrubs and I haven't put down a bag of lawn food in three years.

At home depot they have a couple kinds of Lesco ferts which are particularly 'slow release', for ornamentals and/or palms, or fruit trees. Those won't wash out as quickly from the rains, and they have the minors.

Gary