Relatively new home owner wanting to better my lawn. Is this worth investing in or should I just learn and do it all myself? I’m starting with zero lawn care experience.
My only concern is that this program is generic and not specific to my lawn, but I’m not sure if that matters at all.
by LatinBeef
21 Comments
Depends on how many square feet your yard is, if you’ve got an acre it’s a great deal.
How big is your yard?
Sounds reasonable for that amount of sq ft.
Do a soil test and do it yourself. It’s not that difficult and you know you aren’t going to skimp yourself
Economy looks like a simple four step program with grub control and an added fertilizer application. Neither have pre emergent on there unless earl spring is it.
If you’re into lawn you’ll probably get sick of this after a year or two when things aren’t improving and you’ll eventually follow the guides on this sun and do it yourself.
The price of the fertilizer is basically the cost that you’d pay for top-end Lesco stuff at your local Lowe’s. The cost of aeration is basically what you’d pay to rent a machine at the Home Depot. If this company is well regarded in your local area, then I would consider going with them. It’s very easy to over-apply fertilizer or apply the wrong thing for your lawn and burn it all down. Maybe try them for a year and see what type of results you get.
Not bad at all tbh
Price maybe isn’t bad, but I would all details and product information about what is being applied. And when…they show grub control after early Summer, but…the #1 product for grubs is applied in mid-late Spring. So this guy probably uses a lower end product that is cheaper to him.
Overall, just not enough information. If you’re cutting the lawn, and want to make the investment, learn a few things, and a get a better lawn, DIY is the best choice. Also need to factor in time, kids, pets, etc….but it’s really not that hard..
these folks use cheap fertilizer and seeds / so even if u think u are getting a good deal – u are not. so much more effective and satisfying to do it ur self.
since u are a new home owner, however – it mighy make sense to use them for the 1st year
The second package includes aeration and overseed and Iv paid $1,000 for 10k of aeration and overseed. The second option has a much higher value and the best option in my opinion.
Also understand that lawn care is a lot about soil health. It may take a year or two to get everything balanced and to where you are happy but you have to trust the process and always remember, new seed will not grow if you don’t water it!
Good luck and enjoy the process!
I’m 11,000 SF yard (0.4 Acre lot) in the Midwest. We moved here in summer 2020 and I hired a local company to do our lawn weed/feed service for the first few years. Over the first three summers, we got hit with disease, bad thinning, and other problems, mostly because I didn’t spend the time necessary to develop the knowledge on how to properly care for and maintain my yard. The yard looked “OK-ish” for maybe half the year – It got kinda bad in the summer & early fall though (before our KBG filled back in in the late fall/springs) and we lost a ton of the front yard last year to drought that prompted me to make changes.
Last year, I went off the deep end and subscribed to the Lawninfluencer programs (I personally did Yard Mastery by Allyn Haynes, so I feel like I can give it an honest review). I spent a ton of money chasing better results and, to be fair, I did see a fair amount of improvement over the results I had from the lawn care company. That said, since I’ve started reading this subreddit, [thelawnforum.com](http://thelawnforum.com) and white papers/best practices published by my local university (https://turf.purdue.edu/), my lawn has improved SUBSTANTIALLY over both prior approaches (both the lawn care company and Yard Mastery) & my costs down substantially from either of these two programs, although I think they may go up some this year as I want to some things I’ve read about that I think are “cool” (Humichar, some other soil amendments/top dressing & maybe even FAS/PGR in the spring heading into summer).
These services are OK – they don’t necessarily break the bank in terms of cost but are “one-size-fits-most” programs and aren’t super adaptable if you’re trying to customize your lawn care. So, for example, if you decided you wanted to overseed one year, you’d need to communicate with them and confirm they haven’t and don’t plan to put out pre-emergent in a time that would be impactful to your over-seed establishment. If you don’t have time, or care to do it, your HOA probably won’t come after you if you use one of these programs. That said, you probably also won’t have a yard that I’d describe as top half to top third of the yards in your neighborhood (YMMV here – obviously the “pride of ownership” varies wildly from place-to-place).
One final thing I’ll say, one homeowner to another: No one will ever put in the same amount of care or time that you will to improve your home & yard. Nobody. You are billable hours to everyone you ever hire. Keep that in mind when you decide what services to purchase and which to do “in-house”.
Hope this helps man – Good luck!
That price looks great to me. Especially the core aeration- it would cost you that much to rent an aerator for a day.
You can definitely do a DIY for less money. These services in my opinion want to do more treatments than you really need and they want to spread them out over the growing season so maybe things get applied in summer for example that may not be needed. I do a basic 10k sf for my yard for around $150/yr. Pre-emergent plus fert in early spring, then fert Sept. 1 and again Nov. 1. That’s based on recommendations from various midwest state extension services – Ohio State, Michigan State, Purdue.
I don’t do grub treatment every year because it’s not really needed. I might do one every 3-5 years if I see grubs in the soil or a lot of beetles in the yard. So add $50. I spot treat weeds with a spray bottle and haven’t used weed and feed for years. Again, not needed unless you have a lot of weeds getting started with your own program.
Rent an aeration machine yourself for $100 if soil compaction is an issue.
You can always do more but you can get very good results just doing the basics in my opinion.
As someone who used to work for one of these companies. You can have a higher up tech come out and give your lawn an evaluation, and they can do small changes to get your lawn done properly. It’s definitely a generic plan, but you can have notes on your account that will pop up when they are doing your lawn. You can mention specific weeds to make sure get direct spray. I mean there are all sorts of examples to give of specific lawn things to you, but you can have them add them in your account notes, and the guy who comes out would do that too as he sees things. They want you satisfied so you keep paying yearly to keep their business.
If you have a bunch of specific things, then like have a cold drink for the guys to take or something. I specifically remember a lady giving me and my partner a cold IBC Root beer, and it hit the spot so good at the time, so she always got extra care from us from that point on.
I have 1/3 acre in Midwest 6B. While I can put out granular just fine, a pro will put out granular and spray liquid, too. I used to DIY, but switched to a pro because I don’t want to deal with storing liquid products and spraying them myself, cleaning the sprayer, etc. Check out what your neighbors with nice lawns do, I found my lawn guy because he’s local and has excellent results
Not no, but hell no. Definitely can diy a lot cheaper.
Depending upon which program you use, the costs may be similar. However, most of my neighbors use professional services and I am amused by the quality of work. I’ve seen these guys pull up, do a couple of laps with their machine, and be gone in 10 minutes. The lawns green up for a week or two and begin fading. I can’t imagine that they are getting anything close to full coverage.
So, while I might not be saving significant dollars by doing it myself, I don’t mind a bit of exercise, and the quality of work is much better.
7 step price is what I pay, but instead of grub control, I get overseeding with the aeration. I do the grub control myself
$80 per application is on par for what I’m quoted where I’m from. Roughly 10,000sqft
If it’s less than 10k sq feet, you can just find something at Walmart or Lowe’s that will do a great job for less than $150 for the year for just fertilizer and weed/grub control.
Best lawn never had was using Scott’s weed and feed in the spring, and then I think the cheap brand was Sta-green or something like that but it gave my lawn a deep green color. This is when I had a well and watered almost daily.