My “lawn” is composed of at least 51% weeds, not counting the areas where nothing at all will grow. I can’t afford to dig it up and start all over, so I’m thinking of using a service like TruGreen. Have any of you used this? What kind of results have you gotten? How much does it cost? What is included? Are there other companies that are better?
Interested too, since my lawn is pretty crappy right now, and hasn’t been truly healthy (except on one side) since I bought the house (though it’s better than it was when we bought it.
I called them once a few years ago, and they tried really hard to upsell me to just about every goddam service they offered. I said “I’ll check with my wife and get back to you;” they called me every goddam day for several weeks before finally giving up.
In the end I went with a local service that was not nearly as obnoxious.
Back when I worked for a garden center, they were well known for upselling stuff. I’d get people in all the time with some issue like minor insect damage, leaf galls on a maple (very common and harmless) or a bit of powdery mildew on the roses that could be avoided by changing when you water and they say that the lawn service wanted another hundred bucks to spray for it. I assume that’s the business model: go cheap on the dandelions then charge you $75 to spray for aphids.
I’ve never used them myself so I can’t attest to the job they do when they’re just spraying for lawn weeds and fertilizing but if you do go with them, watch out for the numerous new issues they’ll discover and try to hit you up for.
I use a service out of Lakewood and I keep paying every year even though it’s expensive (I think?) my lawn looks amazing. It, too, was mostly weeds. I just have the front yard done because I have dogs in the back yard and the two lawns are complete opposites now.
They never try to upsell me…or they do, but it’s just via bill inserts which I don’t even read and I throw away.
They do have good customer service tho, I do know. I had a crabgrass issue pop up (had work done in the yard in a drought, what came up after I watered was crabgrass) and I called and asked what can be done and they sent someone out to evaluate and then tell me what to do. What they recommended was expensive so I didn’t do it and they didn’t bug me about it. And whatever they used to treat the lawn the next year fixed the crabgrass problem anyway.
If you want info on the company send me a PM. It doesn’t look like you have PMs turned on. I don’t feel like I know the company well enough (after 7 years lol) to give them a big public Internet thumbs-up. But I’d recommend them to someone in the area looking for lawn care.
I used them for several years. Or to be exact, I used a service that was then bought by another service that ended up being bought by them.
Prepare yourself for endless phone calls trying to sell you intermediate treatments, drought treatments, 17-year cicada treatments and anything else they can think of.
Then should you ever drop them, prepare yourself for call after call, year after year, asking to sign up again, or offering you a free evaluation or some damn thing.
After I dropped them, I went to Ace and got their store-brand four season lawn care treatment (one application each in early spring, late spring, summer and fall). My lawn doesn’t seem to be any worse (or better, for that matter.)
I will say in their defense, that when I did have an issue, they tried to make it good.
I currently use TruGreen (for about 4 years now) and never had a problem with being upsold - they may have tried it once or twice, but it’s not that big a deal with me. I do call every 15 months or so and complain that it’s expensive so they will lower the price, so perhaps that’s the reason why they don’t bother selling me.
OTOH, yard looks great. Biggest problem with it is the water issue (SA is pretty hot and dry during the summer), but that’s not a TruGreen problem.