Can You Fertilize Your Lawn in Palm Beach County Right Now?

The part most homeowners get wrong: Boca Raton does not run a summer blackout on nitrogen. The City’s live Florida-Friendly Fertilizer page says so in those words. North Palm Beach does, June 1 through October 31. The Town of Palm Beach and Jupiter run a shorter window, June 1 through September 30. Wellington, Boynton Beach, Palm Beach Gardens, and unincorporated Palm Beach County have their own codes, if that live ordinance is not open in front of you, do not invent an end date.

Sources below are the live .gov and municode pages opened at write time (August 31, 2026). Confirm the address with that city’s code office before anything with an N or a P on the label goes down.

Boca Raton: weather, not a calendar

Open the City’s page: Florida Friendly Fertilizer (Ordinance 5469, in effect December 31, 2018).

Boca still controls type, amount, timing, and location. It does not lock nitrogen away from June through September. Other communities opted for a summer N-and-P blackout; Boca’s restrictions “are dependent on actual weather conditions rather than seasonal expectations.” Daily summer rain may shut you down for stretches. Several dry days, unsaturated soil, no flood or tropical-storm watch, and actively growing turf (mowed at least every two weeks) and nitrogen can still be legal.

What Boca does require:

• No-phosphate fertilizer, less than 0.5 percent phosphate, a 0 in the N-P-K ratio, unless an approved soil test from UF, a government lab, or a licensed commercial lab shows a phosphorus deficiency.
• Nitrogen caps by turf type. For St. Augustine: 2 lb N / 1,000 sq ft per spring/summer application, 1 lb in fall/winter, 4–6 lb annual. No more than 0.7 lb readily available nitrogen per application. Bahiagrass, Bermuda, centipede, and zoysia have their own annual totals on the same table.
• The same weather, saturation, 2-inch-rain, and 30-day new-sod stops listed above.
• 10 feet off any water body (3 feet with a deflector shield or drop spreader).
• Commercial and institutional applicators complete GI-BMP through UF/IFAS (gibmp.ifas.ufl.edu) and show that certificate for a Boca business tax receipt.

Lawn treatment in Boca Raton follows this weather-triggered code, not a neighbor city’s calendar.

Town of Palm Beach: June 1 through September 30

The Town’s live alert, Palm Beach fertilizer ban begins June 1, cites Town Code Sec. 42-376. No nitrogen or phosphorus on turf or landscape plants between June 1 and September 30, during any other prohibited application period, or onto saturated soils. The 30-day new-sod wait applies. Sec. 42-378 and Rule 5E-1.003(2) still control rates: N or P only if the product matches the state turf rule, UF/IFAS recommendations, or a verified soil or tissue test.

Town-specific: certain products used for severe whitefly infestations may contain nitrogen and are exempt when applied specifically for pest treatment, at the minimum the label requires. That is not a fertilizer round. On the island the blackout ends October 1, not November 1. Confirm the current year’s notice on the Town site before you schedule early October.

Wellington, Boynton, Gardens, unincorporated county

Do not borrow an end date from a blog table.

Wellington. The Acme Improvement District / Village water-quality page is live and specific about phosphorus. Ordinance No. 2004-34, Sec. 30-154: fertilizers with more than 2 percent phosphate/phosphorus shall not go on turf, pastures, paddocks, or nurseries unless a soil test justifies it; product over 2 percent phosphate stays 5 feet off water and off a drainage facility; liquid product over 2 percent phosphate shall not run through irrigation within 10 feet of water or drainage. That is a phosphorus BMP, not a published June–October nitrogen blackout. If Wellington later adopted a calendar restriction, it will be in Village code, open that page. Do not invent September 30 or October 31. Wellington lawn service still treats canals as fertilizer-free edges.

Palm Beach Gardens, Boynton Beach, and unincorporated Palm Beach County. Neighbors adopted Florida-Friendly fertilizer ordinances after FDEP listed local waters as nutrient-impaired. UF/IFAS Palm Beach County Extension’s 2012 summary of the county ordinance emphasized a weather-triggered prohibited application period, a 10-foot buffer, and GI-BMP credentials for hire. That 2012 summary is not today’s code. Live municode for those jurisdictions was not open with a confirmed blackout end date at write time. Ask the AHJ, city code compliance, or the County for unincorporated parcels, before you put nitrogen down in June through October. Palm Beach Gardens lawn treatment is the same turf and a different city hall.

What the turf needs while nitrogen is off-limits

St. Augustine in August does not stop growing because an ordinance says stop. During a blackout, or Boca’s weather shutdowns, mow at the IFAS height and leave clippings on the lawn, not in the street. Iron and micronutrient products with no nitrogen and no phosphorus can hold color; if the first two numbers are not zero, it is not a blackout product. Potassium is often still allowed, confirm on the label and with the AHJ. Fix irrigation. Stay off saturated soil.

A recurring lawn treatment program times nitrogen for the legal window, keeps chinch bugs and fungus off the turf while you wait, and keeps granules out of the canal. See how South Florida pest and lawn work is priced.