Fellow lawn care nuts (or just someone who enjoys a nice lawn). I’m doing an MBA program and doing an entrepreneur course currently. Part of the course is creating a business and plan.
My question: how many of you would pay a premium for more specialized and targeted lawn care company. None that would do things like both mowing, lawn care treatments, weed control, other add ons like aerating/dethatching. This company would come up with a plan for your yard after a free consultation.
If you want to add what you think you’d pay for something like this. What you’d expect knowing a full yard transformation isn’t usually done overnight or in a season. Anything by else would be appreciated!
TIA!! Nothing crazy… just some thoughts for me to add. Competition is fierce in Texas so I realize that but just for fun, maybe…
Picture of my yard for reference.
by jasondowden
5 Comments
Dethatching is a recent trend in lawn care that’s become more common thanks to youtube creators and other non-academic sources. As such, there’s a widespread misunderstanding/misinformation about the topic. This automatic comment has been created in the hopes of correcting some of those falsehoods.
Thatch is the layer of stems and roots, both living and dead, that makes up the top layer of soil. Grass clippings are not thatch and do not contribute to thatch. The thickness of thatch can only be assessed by digging into the soil.
Some thatch is good. While some academic sources say that under 1 inch of thatch is beneficial, most settle for half an inch. Thatch is beneficial for many reasons (weed prevention, traffic tolerance, insulation against high temps and moisture loss, etc) and should not be removed. Over half an inch of thatch may not warrant removal, but the underlying causes should be addressed. An inch or more of thatch SHOULD be addressed. Dethatching as a regular maintenance task, and not to address an actual thatch problem, is NOT beneficial… Again, some thatch is good.
Thatch problems are not typical. Excessive thatch is a symptom of other issues, such as: over-fertilization, overwatering, regular use of fungicides, excessive use of certain insecticides, high/low pH, and the presence of certain grasses (particularly weedy grasses).
Dethatching with a flexible tine dethatcher (like a sunjoe) causes considerable short-term and long-term injury to lawns, and is known to encourage the spread of some grassy weeds like bentgrass and poa trivialis. In some RARE cases, that level of destruction may be warranted… But it should always be accompanied with seeding.
A far less damaging alternative to dealing with excessive thatch is core aeration. Core aeration doesn’t remove a significant amount of thatch, and therefore doesn’t remove a significant amount of healthy grass. BUT it can greatly speed up the natural decomposition of thatch.
Verticutters and scarifiers are also less damaging than flexible tine dethatchers.
For the purposes of overseeding, some less destructive alternatives would be slit seeding, scarifying, manual raking, or a tool like a Garden Weasel. Be sure to check out the seeding guide [here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/lawncare/s/pUsKCxyvwQ)
Additionally, be sure to check the list of causes above to be sure you aren’t guilty of those.
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How would you come up with my specialized and targeted lawn care? A soil test and go from there?
Truth is, regional lawn care plans generally get the job done. A company that recognizes regional diseases, soil type, climate appropriate turf grasses, and regional weed problems are already covering all bases
I own a lawn care business that does nothing but treat lawns. I think what you’re asking is how much would someone pay to have their yard treated based on soil sample results. That would be the only way to do it.
In my experience, it would be extremely difficult to do this. You would have to create an individual fertilizer program for each yard you have. That means ordering different fertilizers, different chemicals, etc…for each yard. Now, most will have similar samples if they’re in the same area. So you could put down the same on those lawns. But what if you have 30 yards in one neighborhood. There could be 25 yards that are similar and 5 that aren’t. What if I have a 300 gallon tank? I can do all 30 with one mix. But wait I can’t because now I have 5 that are different. Am I supposed to go remix for those 5? And what if 3 are different than the other 2? They’d need different mixes as well. Does any of that make sense? I was trying to explain it as best I could!
So, what do we do? We pull samples on all new lawns. Figure out of there is anything drastic (high pH, low P, etc…) tell the customer what the issue is and address it as an additional cost outaide of our regular program. They will still get the regular program applications too as they are designed to not give anything too heavy or too light based on our soil profile in my area.
Again, I hope this helps!
I wouldn’t. At least not as you propose it. A number of my friends are golf course supers and I get a lot of info from them and know everything that can be done and prioritize what I need to do because there’s not enough time it’s very expensive. None of them are going out to do free consults for residential lawns. It’s like asking a bench chemist to go sell supplements at a flea market. So right off the bat I wouldn’t trust who is coming up with my plan.
It sounds easy on paper but it’s entirely cost prohibitive to have a solid plan to do everything, so you end up with 1 of 2 outcomes…scaring off customer off with the price or they will ultimately be disappointed because they will expect a golf course lawn but don’t appreciate the level of effort involved.
The way you’ve worded your post sounds like almost exactly what my plan for my own future business is.
Not at all like what the current comments describe… Not nearly as simple/generic as a soil test. But rather a guy a homeowner/turf manager calls to come to the lawn and get explicit details about how to accomplish the goals of the turf manager… Whether that be a full install, addressing current issues with a lawn, how to reduce input requirements, achieve certain performance/quality metrics etc.
Basically a hired brain. Basically what I do on this subreddit for free lol.
Where I think my idea differs is my product will be information/expertise, and not as much labor/materials (atleast at first, that would be on the expansion roadmap though). So, the consultation won’t be free, as that’s essentially the core of the product.
Anyways, pricing is indeed the issue that’s one of my major roadblocks… Because on one hand, the expertise is extremely valuable and will save exponentially more money down the road… It’s hard to price that for what it’s worth when the customer may not realize just how much strife they’ve been saved from.
True expertise just seems underwhelming to a layman… They’re more inclined to think the morons on YouTube (speaking of Lawn Care Nuts…) that tell them buy expensive fertilizer, dethatch all the time, apply 15 different products, etc, are the ones providing more value by virtue of them just telling them to buy more things.