5 Questions To Ask When Comparing Lawn Care Services

It's spring and many of you are in the market for lawn care. If you are the good consumers I know you to be, you'll get a few estimates.

The following five questions should help you zero in on the best lawn care service to hire.

Virginia Tech recommends homeowners get the soil tested for their lawns every three to four years. The purpose is to stay on top of your soil chemistry so it remains optimal for growing grass. One of the main nutrients to monitor is phosphorus, a vital macronutrient for establishing and maintaining a healthy lawn. Unfortunately, for years overuse led to contamination of our surface waters.

April is National Lawn and Garden Month. I don't have too much to say about that other then it seems like a perfectly good month in which to have it. April, after all, is a pretty lawn-ish and garden-y month. I do have one semi related thing that has always bothered me though...Lawn and garden people (you know who you are) spend a heck of a lot of time, energy and money creating this beautiful outdoor space.

I know—I've slightly misquoted Timothy Leary—but my version applies much better to the annual maintenance required for your sprinkler system. Besides, this is a blog about the green industry, not 1960s counterculture.

Controlling Lawn Disease

It needs to be attacked from all sides to achieve good results, Northern Virginia is known for our hot, humid summers. And in addition to the problems your lawn faces due to drought and heat stress, our weather creates prime conditions for the spread of lawn disease.

Core Aeration

A Vital Element in Having - And Maintaining a Healthy Lawn

Core aeration removes small, tubular-shaped cores of soil, giving air, moisture and fertilizer free access to the root system. Core aeration pulls plugs of soil one-to-two inches long from the ground, leaving them on the lawn surface where they'll gradually break down and decompose.

Crabgrass and The Pre-Emergent Paradox

Most homeowners are familiar with the concept of pre-emergent weed control. You put down this stuff in the spring and it kills the weeds before they have a chance to come up in your lawn. Easy peasy. Carrying this out to its logical conclusion means that you need to make sure you put this pre-emergent down well before the weeds get a chance to germinate or it won't work very well. While there are several weeds that can be controlled in the spring with pre-emergent, the number one target is crabgrass and putting crabgrass preventer down too early can sometimes lead to trouble.

Dealing with Yellow Nutsedge

It can be very difficult to control. Nutsedges are perennial weeds in the sedge family that superficially resemble grasses. Although they're often referred to as nutgrass, and do indeed resemble grasses, they're not grasses at all, rather they're true sedges.

Spring has sprung here in Northern Virginia. Thoughts easily turn romantic...an idyllic walk hand in hand...the bloom of a delicate flower...songbirds of a morning...Well, I'm here to snap you back to reality. You need to get your taxes done, the basement smells like a lab experiment and if you want to watch March Madness there's much work to be done out in the yard. Tree pruning, building a patio, fertilizing, mulching...there are literally dozens of jobs that need doing.

AKA Pick Me! Pick Me!

You've done your due diligence. You honestly accessed the myriad of to do's that you and your significant other have been mulling over all winter. You have distilled them down to two lists. One list of jobs you will tackle in-house between the two of you, the kids and whatever neighbors are easily bribed by BBQ. List number two contains the projects that need to be hired out. You then sought out references, perused web pages and checked online reviews to come up with three vendors for each project to give estimates. Now what?

As summer winds down, it’s time to make the big decision - schedule core aeration for your Northern Virginia lawn this fall or hold off for another year. Many are familiar with the term but aren’t quite sure what “core aeration” is. Fewer still know what good is does for lawn health. Read on and learn why you might just want to make your decision about fall core aeration very soon.

Early Spring - The Most Popular Time to Start Improving Your Lawn

Early Spring is a great time of year to get started on improving your lawn. While it's not the best time (the best time is always 'a month ago'), it is certainly the most popular time. At Bio Green, we have more people start annual service programs in early spring than at any other time of year.

Beginning June 1^st, we started Early Summer (3^rd) services for our annual lawn care customers. This service includes a spot post emergent weed control, scouting for surface insect and disease problems, where applicable, applying a preventative grub treatment and a slow release fertilization.

What Mr. Miyagi Says

'Water infrequently and deeply’ should be the clarion call of all who work in the green industry. I know it sounds a bit like an ancient proverb, but it is actually great advice for everyone maintaining a lawn and landscape. It does more than just save water (spelled M-O-N-E-Y); over time it will be the key ingredient in establishing a more extensive root system. This in turn will make your lawn (and landscape plants) more resilient in the face of drought, disease and any other curve ball Mother Nature can throw.

Out of ten people who think they know what a French drain is, it is my experience only one of them actually will. First off, French drains have nothing to do with France. They are named after Henry French from Concord, MA in the good ole USA. They have played a significant role since the middle of the 19th century correcting problems with standing water. There are several types of French drains. Most homeowners with a basement have one along the outside of their home’s foundation to help prevent the basement from flooding.

Hands down, fall is the most important time to get your lawn into shape. No, not because of a frustrating summer swimsuit season (though it does bugs me that I can no longer pull off a two piece!).

Fall color. It has a strong attraction. Every year it draws thousands to the mountains to sit in traffic and stare. It can also inspire. Reams of bad poetry and countless weak metaphors can be directly traced to leaves changing from green to various shades of yellow and red.

It is time for the final lawn service of the year. Yes, that's the service many of you choose to skip, probably thinking it's just a marketing ploy to sell more fertilizer. Not so! While 'winterize' is probably a word made up by some marketing guru, it is also applicable to one of the most important services of the year.

Unfortunately, there is no such thing as “shade-proof” grass. Even the best-rated shade tolerant seed (chewings and creeping red fine fescue) will not last through the summer in the complete absence of direct sunlight. The rule of thumb is a minimum of two to three hours of sun sneaking through or under the canopy of trees each day. If the area in question is not getting at least that much sun…well…I guess we’re done here. Go search out a landscape blog about the many types of ground cover that do well with indirect light only. But if you've got that small sneaky sun window, read on!

With grub control...Timing is everything

Most veteran homeowners are somewhat familiar with the dreaded white grub. Whether bumping into one of the nasty little fellows while digging in the garden during spring or having large portions of their lawn decimated by a herd (a pack? a swarm?) of them late in the summer, the grub is pretty high on the lawn care enemies list. While there is little disagreement on what to do with them (even the most docile pacifist when faced with a grubby little grub wants it dead) there is a right time and a wrong time to deal with them.