Anyone use a lawn service?

[Skatermom23]

I give up trying to make my lawn look nice! I live on street where every weekend the neighbors are all out trying to have greener grass than the guy next to them. I tried...I really did but I am not a lawn person. I called the Scotts people and I was surprised at how reasonable they are and I can cancel at any time. So, who do you use and will I really have nice green grass in the spring?

 

[tbelfonti]

We used to have Chemlawn before our second daughter was born. They did a great job and we were quite happy with the service. We had to cancel due to DH staying home with DD for 8 months. Our lawn went down the tubes when they stopped.

We just started with Scotts a few weeks ago. We find them comparable cost wise to Chemlawn and can't say for sure how great they are. I'll let you know

 

[Mister Incredible]

Used one, got sick of being pitched every week for another service. We were here doing crabgrass and noticed you need this and that. Hey just noticed you have grass on your lawn, maybe you need this service too. Hey that tree doesn't look so hot, how about we do this. Of course those will all be the standard $75 per treatment.

Much cheaper doing it yourself!!

 

[KelNottAt]

We use Lawn Doctor. They seem fine to me. We have 1 acre in Maryland and they charge us $450 per year. Used them for 10 years.

I'm always thinking about switching to their eco-friendly service or another company altogether. Nutrient pollution is one of the Chesapeake's biggest problems.I always get a twinge of guilt everytime I see another treatment has come and gone and I've forgotten to switch. I wonder what that will cost.

 

[waspnest]

We have a service that comes and does all the fertilization/lime treatments - I think they come 6 or 8 times each year. We pay in advance, it's less than $300 for the year. Our lawn is so beautiful - we tilled it up ourselves and planted seed from scratch, got it going and have used this service for years. We've referred our neighbors and another friend to use them, as they've seen how nice our lawn is. Yes, we could do it cheaper, but they put just the right stuff on at just the right time in just the right amount. If the summer is really harsh and we have big bare patches, we can get them to come slit seed in the fall (paying extra of course), and it's all filled in a gorgeous by the spring. It's a local service, but they're pretty big in the area.

You might not have really green grass in the spring, but give it a year or two and you should notice a real improvement. If it's not to late to do seeding and your lawn is patchy, get them to do a slit seeding, and that will really help get it going in the spring. If you're in a drought-prone area it takes a good 3 or so years to get a good root system that won't just die off when it gets hot and dry.

 

[WIcruizer]

We use a local service, and I would recommend everyone try that. They use the same stuff as the national chains, and are usually cheaper and more flexible. Check references of course.

 

[dadto1girl]

From the former owner of lawn care service. Please make sure anyone who distributes any chemical on your lawn is properly licensed by the appropriate state agency (yes applying pesticides and even fertilizer commercially in some states requires a license) and also carries the appropriate insurance coverage.

 

[mickeyfan2]

Don't use one. Don't want all of those chemicals dumped on my line.

 

[Skatermom23]

From the former owner of lawn care service. Please make sure anyone who distributes any chemical on your lawn is properly licensed by the appropriate state agency (yes applying pesticides and even fertilizer commercially in some states requires a license) and also carries the appropriate insurance coverage.

We called Scotts lawn service so I would assume they are covered, right?

 

[Skatermom23]

We have a service that comes and does all the fertilization/lime treatments - I think they come 6 or 8 times each year. We pay in advance, it's less than $300 for the year. Our lawn is so beautiful - we tilled it up ourselves and planted seed from scratch, got it going and have used this service for years. We've referred our neighbors and another friend to use them, as they've seen how nice our lawn is. Yes, we could do it cheaper, but they put just the right stuff on at just the right time in just the right amount. If the summer is really harsh and we have big bare patches, we can get them to come slit seed in the fall (paying extra of course), and it's all filled in a gorgeous by the spring. It's a local service, but they're pretty big in the area.

You might not have really green grass in the spring, but give it a year or two and you should notice a real improvement. If it's not to late to do seeding and your lawn is patchy, get them to do a slit seeding, and that will really help get it going in the spring. If you're in a drought-prone area it takes a good 3 or so years to get a good root system that won't just die off when it gets hot and dry.

They are going to do core aeration and seed within the next week. I wasn't sure about this but I think it does need to be done. We are new construction, well about 2 years old now and the soil is clay and really compacted down. I was surprised at how inexpensive the service really is compared to how much I spend on all the products and then time to apply it all.

 

[Shagley]

This probably won't be the case with everyone, but once we stopped using Chemlawn, they bombarded us with phone calls trying to get us to start up again. It was especially bad every spring, we would get almost weekly phone calls from March - June no matter how many times we told them no. Just for that reason alone, I won't use them again. It was probably just our local Chemlawn, and not the entire chain that was particularly annoying. They did do a good job on our lawn though, we only stopped using them to save money.

 

[ohiominnie]

Here's a tip....
If you use Chemlawn and they call you because you need (1) aeration, (2) pruning (3) lime treatments (4) any of the above (5) something not listed.... the technique I find most helpful is to himmm and haawwww....and say "well, gee, that price really isn't in our budget right now."

they will go and ask a supervisor. Of course, the supervisor will still give an unreasonable cost. so you say something to the effect of having to talk to your husband and could they call you back.

so they call back...tell them your husband still thought it was too expensive...and that, although you think it really NEEDS to be done, now just isn't the time...

typically they come back with a lower price!!

Last year, I used this technique when they called and told me my yard (almost 2 acres) needed to be aerated....and the cost would be $350! (GASP)....well, by the end of the "negotiation period" it came down to $125....and that was after twice they told me "$250 is the absolute LOWEST they can go!"

 

[grlpwrd]

Don't use one. Don't want all of those chemicals dumped on my line.

All those chemicals that our pets and kids get exposed to can't be good.

 

[Shelby5514]

We just started with Chemlawn this year and are very impressed so far. DH and I were out building a retaining wall in the front yard this spring and a guy came around the neighborhood. He made his pitch and gave us a quote of $65/app. DH said that he thought his dad paid another service $45/app. The guy made a phone call to his supervisor and came back with $55/app. DH said no. The guy went on his way. About a half hour later he came back and said that he "mis-measured" our yard and they could do it for $45/app. The guy also said that if we paid for the year up front we would get a 10% discount. So for $40.50/app we are having them do it 6 times a year. DH was using the Scotts 4 step program and applying it himself costing us $40-50/app. So we really aren't paying much more and we don't have to do anything but cut it. Funny thing, when we were talking to the guy the neighbors wife came over and was inquiring about it. There lawn never took hold after their house was done and they've been fighting a losing battle. He went and looked at her lawn and she called my DH over to get his opinion as this was going to be a Father's Day present for her husband. I went along and when he quoted her $75, I about crapped. I quickly spoke up as we have the exact same size lot and the footprint of their house is roughly the same size as ours. They ended up with the same deal.

 

[DisneyMomJen]

I am really hesitant about using a lawn service with all those chemicals. My father tried one a few years ago and his lawn did look beautiful. My dogs visit there alot. About 6 months after starting this, my Golden came down with lymphoma (sp?) and died within 6 months even after doing 3 months of chemo with her. My parents also have a golden and a yorkie. Both their dogs wound up getting a bunch of lumps all over within months of this also. I swear it was from this lawn service.

 

[Focusdude]

We have used Scotts for a few years - they have been great. Reasonably priced - compared to local, smaller companies (we actually started with a small company that got bought out by Scotts). I would highly recommend them! You pay treatment to treatment (although you do save a small amount if you pay for all the treatments in the spring).

Nothing could save our lawn this year due to the drought - now we have so much rain we are flooding!

Good luck!

 

[JudicialTyranny]

I use Chemlawn. I have a little over 2 acres and it was less expensive for me to pay them to fertilize and keep the weeds down than for me to buy all the material at Lowes Depot. Plus timewise it was getting a little hard to keep up with treating 2 acres in addition to cutting it and spending time with the family.

I never got any of their optional treatments - just spring, summer, fall, winter. They call about grub treatment in the spring, and lime and aeration in the fall. They always recommend these - so don't think that it's something special that they "detected" on your lawn. We ignore the calls - caller ID is a wonderful thing.

I've used them for a few years and up until this year my lawn looked great. But this summer we had a lot of dry spells and lots of grubs. I estimate that I lost at least a half acre of grass to the grubs.

One thing that disappoints me about Chemlawn (and other services too) is that they consider grub treatment an "extra" service, meaning you have to pay over and above the normal treatments. Yet grubs are something that can literally kill large sections of your lawn. You would think that they would automatically treat for something that could kill your lawn, but instead they include treatment for pests like chiggers and ticks - nobody likes those, but the aren't going to kill the lawn.

I spoke with the Chemlawn guy that does my lawn when he came out to do a fall grub treatment (extra $) and he said that some people skip the summer treatment (just fertilizer) and use the savings towards the spring grub treatment. I would recommend doing that after my experience.

(You treat differently for grubs in the spring vs. fall. In the spring, Merit (aka Grubex) is used and in the fall Dylox is used.)

BTW, in regard to the local guy vs. Chemlawn/big guy issue, one thing to realize is that Chemlawn is actually made up of a lot of "local guys". Chemlawn often buys smaller local established lawn services and brings them into the fold (along with their customer lists). For example, the Chemlawn guy that does my lawn used to own is own lawn service and sold to Chemlawn.

 

[zumbergc]

The people and the pets issue, i so understand, all that stuff can't be good the the animals or humans,
It scares me we are killing our cats with the pest stuff.
We so hated chemlawn, they constantly called my husband all the time, we swithced to a local company.

We looked at the organic, it costs a lot more. We went with the organic stuff for the trees. Something to think about, the major outfits spray for everything so they kill the good and bad pests. So if you go with a regular outfit, then switch, it takes a couple years to get the good pests going again that kill the bad bugs. The chemlawn people were spraying all our trees, and the organic people, only applies when their is a problem, can't remember the bug name, but showed up last summer, and the neighborhood is infested with them, so we treated before the little buggers showed up this year to prevent them. Only sprayed the one tree, and some other bushes which had a problem because all the good bugs were dead.

A friend's dad does this stuff, some type of arbor (tree guy). Whether or not it rains the next day after an application, she suggests watering. She also recommended using those little bootie shoe covers when you go out walking and placing the sprinklers in their spots in the lawn. I never went that far, but at least insisted that we water when it didn't rain the next day.

Not and expert but tips i've gleamed over the years.

Connie

 

[DisneyTarheel]

Another tip for reduced treatment costs is to have your home owners' association negotiate a group rate for the neighborhood. You can get great deals doing this. The company saves costs by having so many customers close together. Plus, you get additional leverage to help ensure good service, since they won't want to risk jeopardizing their hold on the neighborhood or their status as an "approved" vendor. Works for AC/heating, pest control, etc., too.