If you are interested in doing it yourself, the first step is education about lawn grasses, soil ph and soil preparation. As I grew up with Kentucky blue grass, the grasses of the South were Centipede, Saint Augustine, Bermuda etc. In other words totally different. All weed and feed products such as Scotts Bonus S can damage trees and shrubs if applied incorrectly.

I took a course on lawn care offered for free by the County Extension Agent. Their office has lots of information regarding lawn care. Of course if money is no object kill everything and have it sodded.

Tru-Green was pretty good at my last house. My wife got pissed at them one year (2015) and went with Weed-Man. They used seed containing crabgrass, ruined a bunch of lawns. Their offer was 20 percent off the next year's treatment. I told them I could get a fucked up lawn for free. They kept calling. I finally sent them a "cease and desist" letter. I went back to Tru-Green at both houses. They will try and hustle you for upgrades, but their basic annual service is pretty good, especially at the new house. The prior owner was a lawn care moron.

What did you decide to do?

I've used services, for the most part they are pretty good as long as they show up, and deploy the proper amount of spray they say they will.

They caught one service here spraying water on lawns with no chemicals, you'd never know if they did or didn't.

The lawns here that are serviced are not as nice as the few of us that DIY. My neighbors lawns is services but he's 80 years old, the service just had to replace a huge section of his front yard because they allowed a bermuda infestation to grow from a small area to take over half the front yard.

I went over to tell him to get on them (mainly to stop it from ending up in my yard) to replace the lawn (part of the deal with a service) which they did.

The point is the guy walking your yard may not know or give a rats ass about your lawn, he's just walking around with a spreader or a hose, so you still have to get out and watch it.

I use a DIY store, they will loan you a spreader for free, the will do soil samples, and send you emails of what's due, tell you what to put down, and you'll get warnings on whats going on in the area if they are good.

Either way you have to watch the lawn and jump on infestations, bugs, etc early.

They make it look really easy ,
but life as a Lawn boy is not at all easy ,

https://www.lawnmowerforum.com/forum.php

the actual physical stuff takes its toll in only 3-4 years, then there is the financial and the liability then there are the customers.

My b.i.l. lasted 15 years and then sold his business.

He did lawn and then snow removal in the winter.
it took him three years to make a profit.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
They make it look really easy ,
but life as a Lawn boy is not at all easy ,

...

the actual physical stuff takes its toll in only 3-4 years, then there is the financial and the liability then there are the customers.

I now have everything I'd need to start my own little one-man lawn service company, save the trailer in which to haul it all around. And the thought briefly occurred to me that might be a Neat Thing To Do, as I rather like doing lawn and yard maintenance. But then I thought... "Hmmm... that would mean customers."

I'll just keep it to my own yard.

20,000+ sq. ft. of lawn, couple hundred feet of various sizes and shapes of shrubbery, multiple trees--I got enough to keep me amused with my lawn & yard power toys

Today I take the lawn down to 2" and flag the sprinkler heads. Tomorrow I'm renting a power rake. Saturday I over-seed.

the most content man in tiny town ( I think)
is Arron.

He mows and does snow removal, but ! he fixes everything that he uses , as well.

quote:

Originally posted by chellim1:
What did you decide to do?

Nothing yet, we just don't have the money right now to be doing anything like this with the medical bills we are paying for having two children in the past couple years. I'm also reading that a lot of these lawn companies are really aggressive in upselling and talking people into things they don't really need which I can't deal with right now.


What I did for now, on Labor day was:

-Cut the section I messed up close with the lawnmower
-Dethatched the crap out of it with a metal rake, had several large trash bags worth of crap I pulled out
-Got K-31 tall fescue seed and reseeded all the areas that were still dead/brown and then straw on top, also overseeded the general area, raked it all in, then watered liberally when it wasn't raining the couple days after that.

We've had a lot of rain since then and the new stuff is starting to grow plus it looks like the stuff there is starting to recover as well.

quote:

What I did for now, on Labor day was:

-Cut the section I messed up close with the lawnmower
-Dethatched the crap out of it with a metal rake, had several large trash bags worth of crap I pulled out
-Got K-31 tall fescue seed and reseeded all the areas that were still dead/brown and then straw on top, also overseeded the general area, raked it all in, then watered liberally when it wasn't raining the couple days after that.

I think you will be happy with the results of your labor!

That sounds like a good plan, PASig. See: You can do it

I've learned a lot watching this guy's videos. The Lawn Care Nut. He's a hoot to watch, but I've gotten really good results in following his advice.
I'm in the south, but he gives advice for all areas and different grasses.
www.youtube.com/channel/UCSjF378bQhLKO-ISsrHE7ng

PASig: Just so perhaps you won't feel so bad about blowing it with the herbicide: I just tried to cut my lawn to 2" in preparation for power raking tomorrow.

Oops!

I figured it would be marginal. Not even close. Scalped the grass down nearly to dirt a half-dozen times in the first few minutes. My lawn is just too lumpy for that height.

Then I remembered: When we bought the mower the dealer threw in a free upgrade to wide, low-profile tires for more stability. I'm guessing that means the height adjustment is off by a 1/2" or so.

No real, lasting harm. I didn't actually dig anything up, per se, but all that's left in a few spots ain't much more than roots