The Basis of Professional Lawn Treatments

When you hire a lawn spraying and fertilizing company like Scott’s Lawn Service or TruGreen ChemLawn, you are employing professionals who are licensed to apply lawn pesticides and herbicides to your turf within EPA and state guidelines. But what exactly are they putting down?

• 1) the main element of the mix is the fertilizer itself. Fertilizer is Nitrogen, Potassium and Phosphorus mixed in varied amounts depending on the weather and lawn conditions. This is what makes your lawn green and helps it to thicken up.
• 2) the pesticides used to kill weeds, crab grass and insects like grub worms are what make up the second piece of the pie.

The Fertilizer

Fertilizers can be naturally derived, or synthetically made. Either way, the elements of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus are still applied to the lawn. The difference is that synthetics act much faster, bringing clear results quickly. In addition, synthetic fertilizers are less expensive and require smaller amounts be applied. Natural or organic fertilizers are derived from natural sources such as plants material or bio-solids. I really like organic and natural fertilizers (environmentally speaking) because of their extremely slow release process, but many lawn care buyers are dissatisfied by the slower results.

I have found that most folks are not concerned with the origin of the fertilizer. It’s the pesticides they are concerned about.

Pesticides

If you want to get rid of weeds like Dandelions, Clover and Thistle, then you are going to have to use some pesticides or weed killers. I don’t care what you hear, there is NO ORGANIC WEED KILLER on the market that actually works!

The good news is that most professional lawn companies target or spot-spray weeds rather than blanketing the entire lawn with pesticides! This uses less and is better for the environment.

If you hire a professional fertilizing company that uses bagged “weed-n-feed” products, dump them and call someone else!

The Ultimate Goal

If you hire the right company, they will work to eliminate your weed problem quickly and efficiently using the best products available. Depending on your weed problem, about 85% of the weeds can be eliminated with one season, meaning less weed control needs to be used the following year. After a few seasons, you may not need anymore weed control at all, thus eliminating the use of pesticides completely.