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froofycat

help with switching to organic lawn care needed!

FroofyCat
11 years ago

I do everything myself - mow, weed, garden, rake leaves, exterminate pests, fight invasive plants, shovel snow... So last year I called TruGreen. The lawn does look lush and green.

But then I got a puppy this winter and the other day I let him out to pee at 6am like I usually do, and there was the little TruGreen flag in the yard and it occurred to me - damn, he's walking all over chemicals!!

So I want to cancel, and was reading about organic stuff, and TruGreen says they have an organic system. But there is another local place that does organic lawn care and I'd rather give them my business. (this is their site, if anyone knows if the products they are touting are any good, I have no idea on cost... http://www.mahoneyssafelawns.com/)

Is this stuff worth it?

Or should i just go cold-turkey and stop everything to save myself money?

As a side, I am also going to cut way back on the sprinkler system. Last year it went off every third day at 4am - rain or shine. This year I am thinking of doing it manually only about once a week, depending on how it looks and rainfall. Besides, half my neighbors don't have sprinkler systems, and their yards look just fine.

Comments (5)

  • rosesr4me
    11 years ago

    I guess it all depends upon how much you want to spend and if you want to do the work. This forum has an abundance of information and advice to guide you through developing an organic program for your yard. I do everything myself - it's easy and cheap. PS...If I had a dog, I would want to know personally what products were being used on my yard!

  • Kimmsr
    11 years ago

    Most of the lawn care companies that tell you they have an "organic" program come in with supposedly "organic" chemicals to replace the synthetics they usually use. These do nothing to make the soil your lawn is growing in into a good, healthy soil so are simply bad substitutes for other bad things.
    There are a few lawn care companies that do have a good organic program, that will come in and use stuff like compost, things that will over time make your soil better, which is what someone that wants an organic lawn should be looking at becaue organic is all about the soil not just not using synthetic products.

  • FroofyCat
    Original Author
    11 years ago

    that is what I was worried about - what their definition of organic really means????

    I'm going to go cold turkey for this summer, and research.

    I've been reading a lot and realized I've done some things right without even knowing it, like always use a mulching mower and leave the clippings, plus I've always been lazy about raking leaves so I mow over as many as I can and leave them on the lawn.

    we'll see how it goes.

  • Kimmsr
    11 years ago

    One year while Son In Law was out mulch mowing his lawn a sales person form one of these "lawn care" companies stopped and started talking with him about lawn care. That lawn at the time was not in the best shape and one of the things this salesperson suggested as part of the program was to dethatch the lawn. As I pointed out to Son In Law a bit later he had no thatch to remove, none.
    I would not trust any large "lawn Care" company to be organic anything. Some locally owned may well be, and the owner of one of these was a the instructor for the turf grass segment of my Master Gardening class. Our conversations often left much of the rest of the class clueless.

  • redvq
    11 years ago

    Yea same thing happened to me. I was out walking the lawn and a Scotts sales rep. pulled up and asked me "Can Scotts assist you today". I told him nope and politely kept working. He then pointed to my "weed" problem and lack of nutrients. I get clover and other weeds every year in the spring but they quickly vanish once the night time temperatures heat up and the bermuda takes over. So 2 months later the guy pulled up again and gets out of his car and asked me if I used Scotts because now the lawn was green and thick. I told him no, I'm on a complete organic schedule. That's when the guy got back into his car and left. He circled back a few more times with a dumbfounded stare before stopping again to ask what organics were. Here it is we have a Scotts rep who works for a company that offers "organics" and doesn't even know what an organic program is.

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