Gardening & Landscaping
Brownie_1234
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Anyone pay TruGreen or something similar?
How much do you pay? Do you like it/feel it is worth it?
We're not too garden savvy, so I'm thinking about going this route.
Last year we got moles because we didn't treat the grubworms in time. We also had a big crabgrass problem. Ick!
Re: Anyone pay TruGreen or something similar?
I guess this was the wrong place to ask.
We have a deck that we use 99% of the time. Honestly - we're just lazy and want it done for us. So yes, please spray chemicals on my lawn.
Do you have another suggestion?
chart
BFP: 6.13.11 - EDD: 2.20.12 - Natural M/C: 6.22.11 at 5 weeks 3 days
A couple of people in my neighborhood use TruGreen. Honestly, the guys RUN when they put down any product and literally spend about 5 minutes at the house. I don't know how much of anything they use actually makes it to the lawn.
I would suggest contacting a local service. Better and probably cheaper, too.
If you want grass that needs to be mowed twice a week and don't have pets or kids that play on your lawn, go for it.
My mom had this done for one season, off the next and on the following season. When she had the treatments done the grass didn't look any different it just grew out of control.
I would have to help her mow once a week usually on a Monday and it would need to be mowed again by Friday.
I will never do it to my lawn, too much mowing. Depending what you need you could probably do it yourself for less and it might be less work than you think.
I was wondering about this. Thanks. Right now, with the crabgrass, it is completely out of control, so we have to mow about 2-3 times per week. I just want the crabgrass and the grubworms gone!
chart
BFP: 6.13.11 - EDD: 2.20.12 - Natural M/C: 6.22.11 at 5 weeks 3 days
We use TruGreen - here in Virginia, our trugreen is $59/treatment for 1/3 of an acre - I think its a little much, but to us its worth it. They spread fertilizers, weed killers, grub treatments, etc. - all at the right time, without me thinking about it. You can tailor the service to you, and they'll give you a schedule so you know when they are coming. Are they perfect? No - last year they spread seed and aerated the end of August. It was 95 degrees the next week with no rain. I watered, and my water bill was $400. Next time, I won't water, lol. The grass came up when it started to cool - so I probably didn't need to water. Our yard is greening up faster than the rest of the yards around it, even the house who treats their yard themselves. It's patchy colored, because we had cheap contractor grade grass from the builder, and then it was "patched" randomly by the few homeowners before us. But overall, its much greener, and this year its squishy under your toes (my favorite thing about grass!). Last year, not so much (we just started last summer). So I see an improvement.
The only bad thing is that they go so fast, they don't take time to go around the flower beds (well, far enough around to avoid them). I've been weeding my flower beds of baby grass all spring. I'm going to talk to the next ones that come. The fertilizer/lime/potassium isn't a big deal. I'm sure it'll help my flowers, and they DO try to steer clear of the garden (it's fenced, anyways, and raised). We also use them for shrubs/trees treatments. It's $39/treatment, and less often than the yard treatments. They winterize the trees, apply fertilizer, bug treatments, etc. I don't know if it's made a difference. Literally all but 1 of our trees was planted by us in the past year or two, so most are small. BUT they all have TONs of leaves already, and our fruit trees are blooming (they aren't even 3' high!).
They DO have a "green" program if it bothers you. I have kids, 2 cats, and a dog that love to be outside and eat the grass (the animals, not the kids). Most of what they spread is pellets, so it sinks into the grass and isn't eaten. The weed killer is sprayed on, they say just let it dry first. They usually only spray this in teh summer when its sunny out, so its usually dry in a few hours. I asked if the animals will get sick eating it after it dries, basically he said it would take a yard full to really harm the animal. Plus grass always seems to make them upchuck anyways, so how much can the absorb? I hope this helps. I tend to ramble, lol, but I tried to give you the full monty of what I think!
my neighbors that use a service have beautiful yards, but they are spraying a shitload of chemicals on it, something we are not comfortable doing.
we put down our own crabgrass preventative (it literally takes 10 minutes) but only in the front as the dogs aren't up there. it was out.of.control last year and dh pulled it all up by hand, it took days to get it all pulled up by the roots. We are trying to avoid that if possible this year.
Gretchen Evie, born 7/8/2012 at 35w5d
We used TruGreen for years and it was great, I have no complains.
As far as the kids/pets comment goes, when it's dried it's fine for kids/pets to be in the yard. The same would apply to granules (like TurfBuilder) that you apply yourself anyway, you have to wait a certain time period before you can let pets out too.
We got a great price by making them pricematch our neighbors rate so we paid $40/treatment for years (we have a pretty big yard too). Honestly I miss not having to worry about it. They used to come while we were at work and it had the whole day to dry before we'd be home and letting the dog out.
You wont notice any change the first year, but at the start of the second year, the grass will be amazingly green and weed free. If you have any weeds come up, call them, and they'll do an additional spray for free.
Honestly it's so easy, and i'm sad that I had to cancel our service. It was the first thing that I had to cancel last year when DH got laid off. We try to do it ourselves now and it's just as expensive for 4 treatments of Scotts than it was for 7 treatments through TruGreen.
FWIW I also wanted to add that we never had an issue with our lawn burning and we never had to water it any more or less than any other year (with TruGreen or without).
And for those that complained about having to mow it more, how is that bad? lol That means that their treatments are doing what they are supposed to do.
We've tried the DIY treatments, and they suck. They didn't do a darn thing for weeds or the health of the grass.
This year, we are hiring Scotts to take care of it. It's $67 a treatment. We're hoping to see the dandelions, thistles, and crabgrass gone.
Our local TruGreen has a reputation of using too much chemicals and burning the lawn, so that's why we went with Scotts. We've had two different households recommend it to us. I guess this varies by location.
At first I was kind of concerned about using fertilizers and pesticides, but it looks like almost the whole neighborhood does, so I guess if all my friends jump off a bridge, I'm jumping too.