Lawn care - Treatments?

[NCby2023]

Our lawn is rather large and kind of a mess. We have several different types of grass, some just newly planted and tons of weeds. We would like for it to be more grass than weeds and just got a quote from someone to come and do treatments. The quote is for $147 per treatment and two recommended per year. This seems extremely anti-Mustachian, what are my DIY options? Or do I just bite the bullet and pay it?

[TheInsuranceMan]

Buy a sprayer to pull behind a lawn mower, spray Trimec or 24d, which will take care of dandelions, clover, and creeping charlie.  2 times a year is typical, and I don't think that rate is overly terrible depending on the size of your yard.

You could spot spray, but I hate spot spraying, so I wouldn't do that :)

[GuitarStv]

If your lawn isn't out competing the weeds, maybe you should rethink the lawn rather than dump hundreds of dollars in herbicides and care products on it every year.

[Choices]

What kind of climate do you have? Sometimes clover is a great groundcover option. http://www.groworganic.com/low-growing-clover-mix-rhizocoated-lb.html

[snogirl]

I would rent a commercial dethatcher.  It does WONDERS for your lawn.
Cost is less than 50 bucks.  It is so easy to use. Afterwards rake up "most" of the old thatch.
Pop out the weeds.  Toss some seed & fertilizer if needed. Water it.
I did exactly this for my front lawn that was literally a mess.
It came back to life in a week. The new grass took in a couple more.
Now its healthy and happy for a little effort & less than $75 including a bag of seed & fertilizer.
You can also test your soil at a local extension service.  Use a bulb planter to take samples.
That will give you an idea how healthy your soil is as well.
It is pretty cheap to do that too.
Oh I also threw some clover in the seed mix that was suggested above.  The bees like that.

[HipGnosis]

I bought my house in winter and found in spring that my yard was a mess....
You don't give any specifics so I can't give specific advice, but will share what I learned (the hard way).
You need to focus on 'growing' the roots of the grass first.  Mow low an often.  Water deep when needed.
THEN you can kill the weeds and, of course, then seed in the bare spots.
Two times a year isn't right.  I 'treat' my lawn 4 times a year; weed killer, fertilize x2 and winterizer.   And I'm not over concerned about my lawn, so I only do what I have to.
Oh, and I use grub/bug killer every 3 years.
Don't fertilize in spring before the ground is 60*, or you're just fertilizing the weeds.
If the above doesn't show improvement, do a soil sample test.

[Frankies Girl]

We started in the last year mowing with the setting for the blade clearance relatively high, and mowing less often so the grass would grow longer and thicker and choke out the weeds. This does work, but can look "shaggy" for a bit while your lawn is in transition.

Otherwise, we do a weed and feed (ourselves - Scotts with a spreader) right at the beginning of growing season to boost.

[yourusernamehere]

I would rent a commercial dethatcher.  It does WONDERS for your lawn.
Cost is less than 50 bucks.  It is so easy to use. Afterwards rake up "most" of the old thatch.
Pop out the weeds.  Toss some seed & fertilizer if needed. Water it.
I did exactly this for my front lawn that was literally a mess.
It came back to life in a week. The new grass took in a couple more.
Now its healthy and happy for a little effort & less than $75 including a bag of seed & fertilizer.
You can also test your soil at a local extension service.  Use a bulb planter to take samples.
That will give you an idea how healthy your soil is as well.
It is pretty cheap to do that too.
Oh I also threw some clover in the seed mix that was suggested above.  The bees like that.

Here's the basic process for dethatching and seeding. https://youtu.be/ui2qnOUj6Ec 

Good luck!

[Uturn]

The key to having good grass is having good soil.   Good soil needs organic matter living in it, and chemicals kill those.  Go organic, get the soil healthy, and the grass will kill out the weeds.  My front yard is St Augustine and I can't recall the last time I saw weeds there.  My backyard is Bermuda, and is mostly weeds in April, but grass after that. 

[couponvan]

Strangely enough for us it was doing a Fall winterizer and seeding in the snowy Winter which really worked to bring back our horrible lawn. I did the Spring Scotts fertilizer with crabgrass/clover control  2X. We also didn't turn on our sprinklers yet. (I think we might have overwatered and gotten fungus in the lawn). It looks better this year than in the past 7 years. Saved $150 watering AND only spent $115 on seed/fertilizer. I will do grub control over 4th of July, as I know this is necessary for our area, and saw some grubs last year....we did not aerate or detach this year either. Go figure.

[choppingwood]

I don't use treatments because I've generally had dogs and don't like them walking across the chemicals. Now that I don't have a dog, the neighbors' cats and dog run around my lawn a lot. (My cats are inside.) I've also told off the treatment guys who come to spray stuff at my neighbors if they happen "by accident" to put chemicals on any part of my lawn.

I'm a great believer in top dressing my lawn. Rake some topsoil over the existing lawn and spread some seed. It is best to do this in a month where there is usually a lot of rain.The lawn starts to becomes stronger and prevail over the weeds. Regular mowing makes a difference too, though not too often. I don't water, though in some places you would have too, clearly.

It will look better, without it becoming a second job. I have a firm policy of not following any advice about making my lawn grow faster.

[NCby2023]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I knew I would get a lot of great suggestions. I hate spending time and money on our lawn and keep trying to shrink its borders. I want to "give back" some of my lawn space to the woods but my husband says it looks too messy. Maybe getting some rocks to define the border would help. Any other ideas on how to shrink my lawn?

[TheInsuranceMan]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I knew I would get a lot of great suggestions. I hate spending time and money on our lawn and keep trying to shrink its borders. I want to "give back" some of my lawn space to the woods but my husband says it looks too messy. Maybe getting some rocks to define the border would help. Any other ideas on how to shrink my lawn?

Round up...it'll shrink it really, really well.  Well, by shrinking, I mean killing it all.  But hey, then you can rock the whole thing and not have to worry about it!

[Tom Bri]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I knew I would get a lot of great suggestions. I hate spending time and money on our lawn and keep trying to shrink its borders. I want to "give back" some of my lawn space to the woods but my husband says it looks too messy. Maybe getting some rocks to define the border would help. Any other ideas on how to shrink my lawn?

I cut out a lot of lawn by planting berries and fruit trees. I suppose the neighbors think it looks messy, but it's great in the summer.

[Metric Mouse]

Thanks everyone for the advice. I knew I would get a lot of great suggestions. I hate spending time and money on our lawn and keep trying to shrink its borders. I want to "give back" some of my lawn space to the woods but my husband says it looks too messy. Maybe getting some rocks to define the border would help. Any other ideas on how to shrink my lawn?

Round up...it'll shrink it really, really well.  Well, by shrinking, I mean killing it all.  But hey, then you can rock the whole thing and not have to worry about it!

This... But watch the wind. Or you'll wind up replacing the neighbor's sod he had just laid. And that is not cheaper than just weeding your own lawn. True story...

[snogirl]

Here is a picture of what my lawn looks like 6 weeks post dethatching.
Pushing the dethatcher was very easy it is like a lawn mower with adjustments for the tines.
No chemicals used and took me about 6 hours start to finish.
The areas up close I had to re-seed but they are filling in nicely.
Prior to doing this, it was brown and full of weeds & dead grass!

[TheThirstyStag]

Dethatching sounds interesting.  Anyone use one of the li-ion cordless dethatchers?

[Metric Mouse]

Dethatching sounds interesting.  Anyone use one of the li-ion cordless dethatchers?

Never heard of one.  I know you can get 'thacthing' blade for your lawn mower - it's jut a bunch of little fingers that hang down and pull up the dead grass as you run your lawn mower over it.

[aliall]

This is my go to site for lawn care advice.  http://www.richsoil.com/lawn-care.jsp

We allow some clover and dandelion, but honestly, we have one of the greener lawns on our block and lots of people get lawn service in our neighborhood.