This is why I pay several hundred bucks a year to a local lawn care company. They have a scheduled, yearly program similar to Chem Lawns old program.
2 1/2 acres ruined. :eek: I know here my pre-emergient weed killer is applied in the winter (Jan). The guy was just here 2 weeks ago fertilizing. He also spot killed a few weeds. The stuff he uses won’t kill St Augustine grass if its applied only in a few spots.
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I decided years ago that home consumers can’t buy the really potent chemicals. Takes a license and I let the pros handle my lawn care. Geez, that Ferti-lome is some good grass killer.
I love the caption on the third photo in the first link: “At first glance it is easy to see how the mistake was made”… Uh, no, it’s not easy to see that. That photo clearly shows the label says “Weed & Grass Control” right on it.
Here’s what I saw by simply looking at the photo of the label in the OP’s link.
Pre-emergent and post-emergent weed and grass control.
The first ingredient listed is glyphosate.
If you don’t understand what “Grass control” and “post-emergent” mean, and you don’t understand what glyphosate does, then you shouldn’t buy $175 worth of the stuff and spray it all over your lawn without maybe trying a test spot first.
If I was paying a lawn service a few hundred bucks a year, I don’t know what they’d be doing to earn it, seeing as it is mostly brown and (hopefully) dormant during our extended drought.
A friend of mine used to work for a national lawn care company. When he was working in my area he would skimp on other jobs and then treat my lawn with left over chemical. He did this as a friendly prank.
It truly freakked me out. Suddenly my lawn was more lush, green, and fast growing. I had to mow every 5 days instead of every 7 - 10. When he confessed what he had been doing I begged him to stop.
Killing his lawn was an expensive mistake. I put down 50 yrds of St Augestine (a pallet) May 1 at $4 a yrd. That covers a 21x21 ft square (L times W)/9. I was repairing damage in several areas from last years drought.
Imagine 2 1/2 acres. The labor alone will easily be in the thousands. There’s no way one guy can lay that much sod by themselves. Heavy rains may wash away the top soil. That means expensive grading work before the sod can be put down.
With a huge area like that, they’ll probably buy rolls of sod instead of squares.
My first thought on looking at the photo was: “He missed a spot.”
Have I ever told you guys about the time I planted a polka-dot lawn? My landlord was hopeless with lawn care, and the thing was about 60% wild strawberries. So being the industrious little suburbanite that I am, I decided to plug in with Zoysia. I was a little low on funds, so put the plugs a little farther apart than called for, but figured it would take over within about three years, and in the mean time it certainly couldn’t look any worse.
LOL!
We had the worst drought in 20 years that Summer. Watering was restricted, and I was sure my money and effort would be wasted. As the weeks wore on though, it became clear that I’d chosen the right product. Everything else in the lawn went dormant and turned khaki-tan, but the Zoysia stayed green and bright - a polka-dot lawn.
I have a lawn service and have considered taking a year off for that reason. That or asking them to skip some of the treatments. There’s a month or two in summer where I end up mowing at least twice a week.
Because of that I haven’t bothered watering the grass during the drought we’ve been having. It’s all brown and looks like straw, but I know it’s healthy and should come right back (it’s all nice and green around the ginko tree that I watered twice) as soon as we get a couple of good rains. In the mean time, I’ve been more then happy to not mow for the last two weeks.
I see a green lawn and I spray till it turns black
No colors anymore the whole damn thing is black
I see the Chemlawn guys dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes
