If anyone recalls, I really screwed up and applied WAY WAY too much weed & feed chemical to the lawn at the front and side of my house and now I seem to have killed all the legit grass and left only crabgrass and other shit grass along with big patches of dead ground. I really didn’t know what I was doing and now it’s a freaking ugly mess.

I’d like to have a lawn service like TruGreen come in and evaluate my grass and see what needs to be done to bring it back with good grass and keep this crappy grass from taking over.

How does this work? I’m all new at it and don’t have any idea of what it entails. Is it expensive?

Are there lawn companies better than others that you could recommend?

Thanks!

Hopefully Mark will be along to help you out. Perhaps you could post some pics and give us an idea of exactly what you did. It is hard to kill the grass completely. Professional services are expensive. There should be some local advice available.

I'll be following this. I had planned to hire Trugreen as I'm planning to sell my house in the next five years and want it to look it's best.

I would go to Home Depot and buy a 25 pound bag of grass seed and rake it in this weekend. This is an excellent time of year for grass seed. Just rake it in and water it a few times a day.

If you really actually killed all the grass, I follow, but modify chellim's suggestion. Rent a roto tiller and rototille the entire yard (looked small enough to do from your pics) then reseed. It would have to be done this weekend or next though as you are a few degrees north of me and this is perfect time here to do it.

If you're dealing with any slope, a big tool can be a chore. I'll suggest renting something like this and use a starter fertilizer. Probably the cheapest you'll get be and pretty effective.




Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwCp3aUmNnY

We hired Truegreen Chemlawn one year. Unfortunately it was a year they were using a new super duper herbicide. It turned out that herbicide was death to evergreen trees, and our once-beautiful blue spruce has never been the same since. To add insult to injury: After we fired them (which was more trouble that it should have been), the lawn seemed to nearly instantly revert to being crap.

A few years later the guy who cut our lawn wanted to do a weed control treatment. That one whacked an ornamental Japanese cherry tree.

I'm doing my own "lawn remediation" this year. My applications are having more positive effect, and no negative effect, for way less money.

But I do lots of research, I'm careful to read the labels, and I'm attentive to application rates.

In your case I wouldn't try any more herbicides just now. You can actually wreck the soul with to much. I'd rake, seed, top dress, and water it in.

This is a good time of year for it.

About a year and a half in, I've been happy with "The Weed Man". I pay a-la-carte: $65/treatment and you can pick and choose what you want. I've gone with the fertilizers and weed treatments but forgone the overseeding and such (I do it myself).

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Speedbird,

If you have a lawn man that cuts your grass that you really trust, ask him who does the best job as he sees a bunch of lawns each day. If not, find the 4-6 best lawns in your neighborhood and knock on their door and ask them who they use.

So i missed this.

How bad did you screw it up.

First off, crabgrass grows in hot weather, and won't grow again until next summer's hot weather starts.

If you really eff'd up your lawn as bad as you say, then you need not just a chemical, but you NEED a process.

1 seed, or 2 seeds, or 1 fert, or 2 ferts will not fix it. It will be a multi year, multi season fix.

Fist off, I would by grass seed. I would put it down NOW. I would water that seed once a day, at least 1 inch of water (as in you put out a tupperware dish and leave the sprinkler on til it is one inceh deep each day) It will cost you.

2 weeks from now, i would do the same again.... while keeping hte water ing going.

After it has been 2 mowings since any baby grass has been cut, I''d drop a fall ween 'n' feed. If not, then just a fall feed with iron. If the average temp isn't abot 50 degrees you are wasting your time nad just don't.

If so, then wait til next year.

Over the winter, do a Lime treatment.

Put down a huge bag of lime. It would be very hard to do too much. Unless you own a graveyard or a Sequoia tree, you can[t do doo much.

Then start your lawn.

March/APril: Either spring weed'n'feed followed by a pre emergent weed control for crab grass (if you are good 2 rounds of this, or at least pre emergent on the last)

May Jun: A weed n feed and left over pre emergent to keep the crab grass off.

Late Aug or Sept High iron fertilizer and basic weed control.

Late Sept or Oct: same, and Lime if you need it. And if it is thin, seed the hell out of it.

After 3 years of fighting mine thanks to poor care by the old owner I gave up trying it myself.

I went to the folks in my area that had the best looking lawns around. Asked them how they did it. 3 out of 4 were TruGreen (your best will possibly vary due to location)customers the other guy did it himself.

I called them and set up a plan. I have a yard that falls in their lowest teir (based on size)price plan. It was 24.99 for the initial treatment and 39.99 each additional. They come 5-7 times a year based upon the lawn. If I fully payed up front I think I would have saved 10%.
They will only seed in the early spring and fall. They are going to overseed and aerate for $175. Not bad considering the equipment would cost me $150 to rent.

I am 3 treatments in and my lawn looks a million times better. I have a few sparse sections but that is because I had so many weeds. Once they seed in the fall that will solve that and I expect my yard to be looking amazing.

Now all I do is mow high once a week and water. I setup a sprinkler system so I just have to turn them on and set the timer

I wish I would have just paid somebody years ago.

Most of the yards that I see that I think look amazing, our "DIY" guys. It is a hobby for them, and they do enjoy it.

A friend with a DIY yard turned me on to the "The Lawn Care Nut" on YouTube. He has lots of videos, and he's enjoyable to watch. MY friend also suggested I use the fertilizer Milorganite. His description was "the poop of Milwaukee residents". LOL.

My yard is a high traffic yard. I've given up on having the Yard of the Month. Our house can be the local hangout for the neighborhood kids, and my son's also have a dogsitting business. So are yard gets used and abused. Doesn't mean it has to look like crap.

I think the key thing is people tend to cut their lawn too short. Most of the amazing yards I see, the grass is taller than most people want. At my old house, I finally got my yard looking respectable. My father in law was in town, and decided to cut my yard for me. He dropped my mower to the lowest setting. It never looked right after that.

I had little luck with my lawn until I started educating myself on the process. Prep was as or more important than what I used.

Then I started using the services of the Univ. of NH agriculture services and sent in soil samples to be analyzed. The ph was way off and low. the home test kits are far from accurate. The ph was low as is the norm in this are. It took more than a few applications and seasons to balance into a perfect 7.0. But now a over seeding in the fall and only two or at most three applications of a fertilizer only keeps it green. I mulch with adds a lot to the lawn. In dry periods the lawn may go dormant but springs back.

I am in your area and use Giroud

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
I would go to Home Depot and buy a 25 pound bag of grass seed and rake it in this weekend. This is an excellent time of year for grass seed. Just rake it in and water it a few times a day.

The tall fescue blend comes in a 25 lb and a 50 lb bag. I'm over-seeding this weekend with the 25 lb bag. If you have a lot of bare area, get the 50 lb bag.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Pe...-100532147/303458178

How does it all start?



Then get used to dealing with a group of people akin to mobile used car salesmen.

If you are going to go with TruGreen, or any other such company be careful as they will start out trying to sell you the max amount of treatments, many that you might not need.

I go with
-pre emergent in spring
-fertilizer in spring along with post emergent weed killer spot treatment
-Then another fertilization early summer along with insect control (chinch bugs are bad in our area)
-Grub control in mid July
-Last fertilization in mid Aug with spot weed control
-winter weed pre emergent in mid Sept

They have 3 or 4 additional treatments like iron and odd-ball fertilizers which I refuse.

Most of these treatments are just a few bucks more that it would cost me for the chemicals.

Don't accept the first pricing they throw at you. If you say the plan looks good but it's a bit pricey, they will negotiate.

 
Being in a small town, I use local contractors for landscape/irrigation, and also for pest control (and anything else). The chain services charge extra to come out this way and often try to upsell you services you don't really need. I find that the right local guy is just as knowledgeable, and has the necessary permits to use the same chemicals, and is always cheaper than the chains.
 

I just redid my entire front and back lawns for about 250 bucks.

First, bought a highly reviewed electric tiller off of amazon. That was the most important thing for my lawn, as the dirt was hard as a rock, which isn't far off from what it tilled up as. Salts over the years built up and crystalize in the dirt, turning it super hard.

After tilling up the whole thing, raking up the remaining grass clumps and removing them, I put a bunch of bags of soil amendment in on a second round of tilling. This is the sheep excrement, mushroom soil, etc., that's recommended for your area. I just opened a bunch of bags, spread it around, and retilled it in.

Then from a local shop got their special blend of grass that's made for the local climate. Watered the soil deep, spread the seed, raked it in lightly, then kept the watering up a couple times a day. I also spread a bag of clover seed around also for long term health. The idea is, grass is pretty bad for the soil, which is why we're always fertilizing it, etc, because it robs the nitrogen out. On the other hand, clover takes nitrogen from the air, and puts it into the soil. And it looks good in my yard.

I agree and disagree with some of Kevbo's recommendations, as follows:

Agree: This will be a multi-year process.

Agree: If you're getting cool nights and warm, not hot, but warm days: Now is the time to seed.

Disagree: Watering 1" per day may be overkill. Established turfgrass needs only 1" per week.

The generally recommended new seed process is to pre-water to a depth of several inches, seed, water-in for 5-10 minutes, then water enough daily to keep the top couple inches moist--once or twice a day--until the seed is established. Some recommend top-dressing. Others recommend simply lightly raking the new seed in. It'll depend upon soil conditions.

How much water the above takes will depend upon your soil and weather conditions.

Disagree: Fall weed-n-feed.

Fall feeding only. High potassium, low (or zero) phosphate. I'll use Lesco's 20-0-20 with 0.5% iron for mine. Generally after the last cutting. It's there mainly for next spring, not the current fall/winter.

I would not use a weed control in the fall because the growth season is over at this point. All you'd be doing is putting down herbicide that'll threaten trees and shrubs, IMO.

Disagree: Lime treatment. Some need it. Some do not. Depends upon your soil conditions. Your county extension will probably do a free soil analysis for you.

Disagree: Spring weed-n-feed.

Typical weed-n-feeds work on established broadleaf weeds. There will be few, if any, of those when you do the spring feeding.

Instead: About the time the soil temp hits 50°F: Another high-K feeding plus pre-emergent control. The timing of the first pre-emergent is critical. (Most say if you don't get the first, skip the second, because you'll just be wasting it.)

Then, about three months later: Second pre-emergent treatment.

I'm guessing, given you're in Pennsylvania, that the 1st and 2nd pre-emergents will be in about April and July.

Disagree: May/June weed-n-feed.

Instead I'd apply liquid broadleaf control, as-necessary. An Ortho hose-end sprayer and Ortho Weed B Gone will get most things. I also like PBI-Gordon SpeedZone. (I use both, as necessary.)

Add a non-ionic surfactant for maximum results. If you're using a hose-end sprayer, be sure to adjust the metering for the surfactant having diluted the herbicide.

Go easy on the application rate. Better to under-apply than over-apply. If you get it a bit too light, follow up with spot-treatment with a 1- or 2-gallon pump sprayer.

Agreed: Mid-to-late-summer feed, but not weed-n-feed. I used Lesco's 24-0-11 with 2% iron and 50% slow-release nitrogen and it greened the lawn up nicely, without resulting in undesirably rapid growth.

If the pre-emergent was done, plus the early-summer broadleaf control, you should have little to control. If there's a lot to knock off, anyway, I'd repeat the liquid broadleaf control I suggested above. Otherwise just spot treatment.

Other observations/recommendations...

Watering the established lawn: Needs about 1" per week, depending upon soil and weather conditions.

Each late summer, after the super-high temps have subsided: Over-seed. Whatever watering schedule worked throughout the summer: I'd say cut it in half and do it daily, until the new seed is established.

Consider dethatching (if you've been leaving the clippings on the lawn) before over-seeding, otherwise the seed may just end up laying atop the thatch, where it'll merely provide food for the wildlife.

General watering hint: Best to put it down early in the morning, before the sun rises. Say between 03:00 and 06:00. Less lost to evaporation, that way. More gets into the soil, where the grass can use it.

As you can tell: I am not a fan of weed-n-feed combo products. They work, but there are better, more targeted, more efficient methods, IMO.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawn care professional, nor do I play one on TV, nor did I stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. YMMV. No warranty, expressed or implied. Use at your own risk.

N.B.: Guy that does the lawn gear repair I cannot, who works for a professional lawn maintenance place, when he stopped by to pick up the mower, yesterday, allowed as how he thought my lawn looked terrific. Some of it he said looked like it'd been sodded