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When weighing out the difference between hiring a professional lawn care company vs. DIY – Do It Yourself lawn care, you first need to consider what is most important to you and at what cost – time or money… or both! For some people, time is money.
Let’s weigh out the differences…
Professional Lawn Care Services
If you hire a professional, they will come out with their own equipment and bring the proper chemicals that they know are effective from their vast experience, they will come out at the right time of year and perform lawn care services at the proper intervals.
Professional Lawncare is an art and a science. If you are not well versed in caring for your lawn then you may be missing some serious steps that are required not only to have a beautiful green lawn, but also a healthy lawn. Professional lawn care should be left to the pros.
You won’t have to worry about forgetting to take care of your lawn as they will have you scheduled and your lawn will be their top priority.
Do It Yourself Lawn Care
If you plan on managing your lawn care yourself, then you first need to understand what it will take to have a healthy lawn so that you can have a beautiful green lawn. It’s not as easy as it might seem on the surface. You can’t just purchase the fertilizer that your local home improvement store happens to be pushing and do you really want to take the advice from the person working in the garden center? Most of the time, these sales people don’t even work the garden center all the time and are from another department.
You now have to shop for the proper lawn treatment. Do you know what to get? Do you need fertilizer or lime? Or possibly something with more Nitrogen? What happens if you put too much Nitrogen on your lawn? Do you need to water it in or just put it down? Will it burn your lawn? What about potassium? Let’s not get started on weed control – that’s a whole new conversation.
There are lots of commercial formulations made by large companies trying to simplify this difficult task by labeling the times of year as “Steps” for instance. This is where Step One would be in the spring and Four or Five would be in the fall. While the essence of this seems logical, what is or is not going on in your lawn certainly may not reflect your real lawn care needs at a given time during the growing season. What’s the big deal you might say?
Well, if you are treating for chinch bugs but really have a grub problem that is a real problem. You have now applied a pesticide unnecessarily and have not solved the issue at hand. Don’t forget, these products are not cheap; you can lay down a quick $100 to treat a quarter of an acre without even looking at the receipt. Don’t forget about the damage still being done or the cost of a lawn renovation. Diseases and insects are real threats and are not easy to diagnosis without some field experience and education.
How badly do you want a beautiful and healthy green lawn?
Back to the time element; the time involved shopping, carrying the bags back home, and actual application can easily turn into half a day barring any confusion, weather issues, or other time consuming delays. Most lawn care products also have rates and ranges, but that assumes you know what you’re treating. The TV ads make treating your own lawn seem easy, like grilling up a burger on a Saturday night, but this is oversimplified.
Best case scenario, you bought everything you need – and used up most of your prized Saturday morning and into early afternoon putting down a weed and feed plus lime, plus crabgrass inhibitor. Let’s assume you did the job right. How does this really break down in terms of time and money spent? Most products you find at the hardware store are either setup for a 5,000 or 15,000 sq.ft. yard.
A recent online search brought up the following data to fertilize a lawn and treat it for both broadleaf weeds and crabgrass:
- I will use a common lawn size of 8,000 sq.ft. Which means you will need two bags of the aforementioned product @$65 each, now you have to store a partial bag for use next spring. Hmmm, wonder if it will be useable next year? $130
- 1hr shopping for fertilizer and bringing it home $25
- 1hr for application/cleanup $25
Approximate total cost of $180, excluding your spreader. Remember, I said the job was done correctly, what if it was not? That would be scary.
A professionally licensed and insured applicator in Georgia could do the same treatment in 15-20 minutes and charge you between $60 and $95 depending upon your location and actual materials/rates used, which do vary. The old saying, “you get what you pay for” surely does have a legitimate basis.
If you want the job done right, would like more free time, and still want to enjoy your landscape, perhaps this is the year to explore alternatives to doing the work yourself.
You weigh it out and be the judge – success always breaks down to Return on Investment, so don’t leave your time spent out of the equation.