I was wondering what opinions you all have on lawns and lawn services. Not a service for mowing but spraying for weeds, etc.
We have a fairly large yard. We have 5-1/2 acres of land with approximately 1 acre used for yard, house & garage. Being in NE Minnesota our lawn is only an issue from early May through early October.
I can’t decide how much I should care about what the lawn looks like. We mow and trim regularly, but I’ve noticed in the last 5 years or so we have a lot of dandelions and creeping charlie moving in :(. We’ve spread weed & feed every once in a while but by looking at the yard I’m guessing we don’t do it enough. I also have flower gardens in different areas that I keep up with enough so that they look nice throughout the summer.
Some yards in our area are beautifully lush and weed-free. Others look a lot like ours.
So do you care what your yard looks like? Is having a lawn service worth it? Or is mowing and trimming good enough for you?
I used to use one. 5 treatments/yr IIRC. I got it because my lawn was probably 75% Creeping Charlie. Like, there was so much of it that neighbors would compliment how nice my grass looked (because it was so green) only to realize it was just weeds.
It took probably two years and it was back to normal grass. Before I had them, nothing I tried even made a dent. Now, when I see the occasional bit of ivy, usually in Spring, I spray it with something and I’m usually good for the rest of the year.
I ended up getting rid of them because the grass was weed free and, honestly, all the fertilizer was making it grow too well. I was getting sick of mowing 3 times a week all summer.
These days, the creeping charlie is gone and I really don’t care about the dandelions.
I used to use one. 5 treatments/yr IIRC. I got it because my lawn was probably 75% Creeping Charlie. Like, there was so much of it that neighbors would compliment how nice my grass looked (because it was so green) only to realize it was just weeds.
It took probably two years and it was back to normal grass. Before I had them, nothing I tried even made a dent. Now, when I see the occasional bit of ivy, usually in Spring, I spray it with something and I’m usually good for the rest of the year.
I ended up getting rid of them because the grass was weed free and, honestly, all the fertilizer was making it grow too well. I was getting sick of mowing 3 times a week all summer.
These days, the creeping charlie is gone and I really don’t care about the dandelions.
I cancelled mine for the same reason.
I have 1/2 acre and have mine treated. The neighbors on either side have beautiful lawns. One side has a Garden Club Tour yard (meaning the garden club comes and visits her yard every year and she shows them all her beautiful plants). I feel like I owe it to them to at least have a lush, weed-free lawn to compliment theirs. Sort of a “thank you” for the nice view.
I don’t get the backyard treated because of my dogs. I don’t want the hassle of getting them inside when they come to treat, or expose them to chemicals. I keep it mowed just the same, and the neighbors don’t complain (as long as I trim the grass with the trimmer along the fence).
I’ve thought about stopping treatment because I have to mow 3x a week too but then I remember the back needs just as much mowing as the front, without treatment, so the fertilization is not the cause of my woes.
It’s like $400/year to do my 1/4 acre. I can’t imagine how much 5.5 acres would be. I’m sure it wouldn’t be 20x the cost but still…it’d be expensive, no?
For your yard OP I would just leave it. Dandelion season doesn’t last too long anyway.
Our lawn is always green, even during droughts. Much of that green is broad-leaf weeds, dandelions, etc, but it’s green.
Years ago a buddy who worked for a national lawn care chain decided to pull a practical joke on me. Anytime he had jobs in my area he would treat/fertilize my yard during the day when nobody was home. He’d water down his chemicals afterwards then do his “real” jobs. Our grass was *beautiful *; lush, green, and amazingly fast growing. My neighbors were jealous.
I knew something had to be going on. I was mowing twice a week, where before I was trying to get by with every other week. Eventually my friend spilled the beans.
I’ve never cared about weeds in the lawn as long as it looked green. A lawn service would be useful if there was thinning in some areas, and a program of reseeding, aeration and fertilization could help.
As for herbicide/pesticide treatment, no thanks. There are services that offer “organic” methods, but I have no experience with how effective and safe their treatments are.
I don’t use chemicals on my lawn or garden, and I don’t care about weeds. Dandelions are an early source of food for bees, if you need an excuse to not care about them. 
I think lawns are a waste of time and energy, do next to nothing for the environment, and cause toxic run-off when people use chemicals on them. I’m slowly disappearing my lawn with expanding flowerbeds (filled with native plants), and I get excited every time I add a new one and cut away all that sod.
Not a big fan of lawn, but the lawn I have, I prefer to not be a complete weed patch. To do so requires SOME use of poisons - tho IME considerably less than manufacturers recommend (Scott’s 4-step for example). Also, once overall weeds are in control, you can further reduce poison thru regular pulling and spot treatment of weeds that occur. Get at them early, and they won’t spread.
IIRC, residential lawns apply more weedkiller/fertilizer than agriculture - which is a HUGE contributor to water pollution/dead zones. If you decide to go with a commercial service, go w/ no more than half the applications they recommend.
Be thankful you are not our neighbors. I have a square corner of our yard that I rototilled and planted dandelion, broad leaf plantain, and narrow leaf plantain. 
We’ve had a local company treating our lawn for many years. There have been times I’ve thought about ditching them, but especially around this time of year I will compare our lawn to others in the neighborhood, and I don’t have the dandelions and clover and whatever else is spreading through the neighborhood, so then I feel like it’s worth it.
If I ever got to a point where I had to carefully watch my expenses, that would be one of the first things to go. But I’m sure within a year I’d be noticing a difference.
Sounds like the makings of a good salad!
Thanks for helping me make up my mind. I’m leaving it as it is.
Someone up-thread mentioned treating 5-1/2 acres. That is our total property. Most of it is woods. There is probably 1 acre that is lawn, minus what the house, garage and driveway sit on.
I don’t mind dandelions - they’re kind of cheerful and I’m all about the bees getting what they need. We also have an area that is mostly clover. I love the clover. It smells heavenly when it flowers and the rabbits and other critters love it. The creeping charlie kind of bothers me, although it’s actually kind of pretty. We should let it take over the entire yard and never have to mow again since it stays low growing. In fact, some people are seeding their lawns with clover so they don’t have to mow. The problem will come in when other weeds start to seed themselves amongst the clover.
I also don’t want to have to be mowing more than I have to. We’re already mowing every 4 days in May and June. After that, we can usually get by with once a week.
Happy mowing everybody!
It’s better than shoveling snow!
Heh. I mowed twice yesterday. We have two lawn tractors, one bags clippings the other doesn’t. So, the bagging Kubota had mechanical issues at the start. Rather than fix the Kubota, I got out the Cub Cadet and mowed, doing a beautiful job.
Then I went to work on the Kubota and I got it fixed. My gf asked if I’d use it to pick up the clippings, so I did, basically mowing a complete second time. Perfect day for it though.
I don’t have a bagger (no place to dump) so I have to mow my front yard twice a lot. If I don’t get to it quick enough, the mulcher leaves too many clumps. I have to mow perpendicular to the way I just mowed to chop the stuff up more finely and make it disappear into the lawn. Usually that’s what I do on the weekends.
I try not to think about any of it too much because it’s all absurd.
You know, I was thinking about this. You coulda stopped after the 1st period, w/o any reference to the lawn! 
Right now, my lawn is definitely more weeds than grass. Looks fine now, and I’d be perfectly happy with it if only the weeds stayed around all year.
The problem is, the weeds die back in December. So between December and May when the weeds return, there’s a lot of muddy soil and just enough weed roots and live grass to hold it all together.
I don’t like the idea of chemicals on my lawn, so I’ve never hired a lawn service, but I’m thinking about it now. Now that the Firebug is approaching his teens, he doesn’t play in the yard nearly as much as he used to, so at least I wouldn’t be exposing him to the chemicals nearly as much as I would’ve if I’d done this five or ten years ago.
OP - that 5 1/2 acres sound like my parents. I find that if we dont keep it mowed down it quickly returns to the pasture it was and alot of really noxious weeds come up like thistles and … I dont know what to call them but the weeds with the burs and stickers that cling to your clothes when you or your pets try and walk thru. Also volunteer trees and shrubs pop up that I swear turn into trees in a year if you dont take them out while they are small.
So I’m not sure if you would call it “mowing” per se. More like brush hogging or pasture/forest management.
The main yard we dont do anything to but that “grass” was pasture/field for decades that could grow to 2-3 feet high if untouched and must have roots just as thick. We could probably hay and bail it.
