The Deal that I've Struck with My Lawn

It's that time of the year when the lawn care people start calling to get you signed up for the up coming season.

How much you let your lawn care company do, or in other words, how much money you give them, is your business. But if you want to minimize those lawn care expenses I'll tell you what I do.

First of all, I don't water my lawn, for a couple of reasons. One, I don't have and I don't want an automatic watering system. I already have enough "gadgets" in my life.

Secondly I'm not going to spend hours dragging hoses around my yard trying to keep it adequately watered.

Therefore I've struck a deal with my lawn and it goes something like this:

"I'll take good care of you when you are actively growing. But as soon as it gets hot and dry and you go dormant, I promise not to fertilize you or take any other dramatic life saving measures while you are resting. As soon as you wake up, usually around early September, I'll give you a little snack and get rid of any weeds that might have invaded you while you were sleeping."

That's the deal I have with my lawn and we're both quite happy.

So this is the deal I have with my lawn care guy:

One application in early spring to prevent crabgrass.

A second application in mid spring (mid May here in Ohio) to fertilize and get rid of any broadleaf weeds.

A third application in September to fertilize and get rid of any broadleaf weeds.

I never buy any extras no matter how hard they try to sell me. If they don't like my schedule I get rid of them and find somebody else.

I hire somebody to treat my lawn because they usually charge so little per application it's just not worth my time to do it myself.