You can go to our website at www.LawnAmerica.com and go to the homepage of your local operator and enter in the contact information for your referral. We’ll take it from there and provide them with a free estimate and information on LawnAmerica. You know us well enough that we are not going to slam them and use high-pressure sales techniques. We’ll treat them right, and make you look good for referring LawnAmerica. If they begin service with us, we’ll send you a $25 Gift Card in the mail for you to enjoy.
For every new customer you refer to LawnAmerica that begins service with us, we’ll send you a $25 Gift Card from Applebee’s, or other local restaurants.
If you are looking for a safe place to invest your money these days without the wild gyrations of the stock market, the answer just may be right in your front and backyard. Homeowners are realizing that investing in their home lawn and landscape not only provides immediate aesthetic and environmental benefits, it’s also something that will increase the value of their home.
A recent report in Smart Money magazine reported that a nice, well-cared for lawn and landscape can add 15% to the value of your home’s value. That’s a great investment these days! Springtime is the time to get started on that backyard project you’ve been putting off, or to rejuvenate you landscape with fresh shrubs, annuals, or perennials. There are many fine garden centers in your area where you can purchase new plant material, and obtain advice on what works in our unique environment.
From our experience, the biggest problems we see in landscapes are the wrong plants being installed for the conditions, or being installed improperly in poor soil. Plants need air and good drainage in the root area to survive, so take the extra time to properly prepare the soil, and don’t be afraid to ask for help and advice from a professional.
For even more impact and increase in value, look to more elaborate landscape additions, such as water ponds, decks, paving stones, and arbors. These can be simple do-it-yourself projects, or turn the project over to a professional landscaper if you have bigger ideas.
The most important part of any landscape, in our unbiased opinion, is the turf itself! According to EPA’s publication Healthy Lawn, Healthy Environment, healthy grass prevents soil erosion, filters contaminants from rainwater, absorbs many types of airborne pollutants, like dust and soot, and helps absorb city sound pollution. Grass also converts carbon dioxide to oxygen, a process that helps clean the air.
A Gallup poll concluded that a well-maintained lawn has real monetary value also. So don’t invest all your money and time in the landscape! Make sure your grass is being taken care of also.
At LawnAmerica, we always take customer service and satisfaction very seriously. It is our passion.
So much, that we have added our LawnAmerica Guarantee to our service this year. I hate to sound like a broken record, but it’s on our website! It basically says, “If you are ever not pleased with our care for your lawn, contact us and we’ll promptly return to care for your lawn (re-spray, etc,), and return in 1-2 weeks to make sure you are pleased with our care.” You must let us know, by calling or with an e-mail, when you have questions or problems. We’ll then do all we can to address those until you are pleased.
If you have a bermudagrass lawn, it goes dormant every fall and stays brown over the winter. It will then slowly green-up in mid-spring as soil temperatures warm, along with good watering and fertilization.
Some homeowners don’t like the brown color of the turf, especially if you have shaded areas with green fescue in areas of the lawn. If you want a green lawn all winter, with an especially beautiful green lawn in early spring, then consider overseeding in the fall with Perennial Ryegrass.
Ever wonder how baseball fields and certain golf courses look so green beautiful in very early spring? It’s because they are overseeded every fall. By seeding a cool-season grass, in this case Perennial Rygrass, into your existing bermudagrass turf in mid-Fall, as the bermudagrass turns brown, the Rygrass seedlings will develop and allow the lawn to stay green during winter. As the weather warms in late February and March, the overseeded Ryegrass will then really thicken and green-up even more, leading to a really beautiful lawn in early spring.
During mid-spring, your Bermudagrass will then begin to green-up, although it will be under competition from the Ryegrass, which will still be going strong. Eventually, as we head into summer, the Bermudagrass will take over and predominate over the Ryegrass.
If you commit to overseeding Ryegrass, it will change the way we manage the lawn and the product we apply. If we do not do it, you’ll need to let us know beforehand so we can adjust our treatments. You’ll also need to overseed every fall, since most of the Ryegrass will die out during a hot summer in the southern part of the country. Ryegrass is a cool-season grass, so it does not do well in hot, dry weather. It thrives when temperatures are cooler, and with plenty of moisture.
At LawnAmerica, our overseeding process consists of aerating the lawn, applying a heavy rate of seed, and applying a starter fertilizer. With good, consistent irrigation, it will germinate quickly—watering is the key. You don’t have to aerate in all cases, but it does seem to help the germination rate, along with providing other benefits to the turf.
One drawback to overseeding is that you’ll be mowing your lawn earlier and later in the season, compared to a dormant bermudagrass lawn. The cool-season Ryegrass will be looking nice earlier in the season and later, but it needs mowing also. It is defiantly a higher maintenance situation, along with an added investment. So think twice about doing this. Your lawn will look great, but there is a price to pay!
If you have a Bermudagrass lawn, you may notice many brown circles appearing as your grass is trying to green-up this spring. No, it’s not crop circles, but rather a very common and troublesome turf disease called Spring Dead Spot. Spring Dead Spot is a turf disease which is unique only to Bermudagrass, especially certain cultivars.
It is caused by a common fungus, which actually infects the turf during the fall. The symptoms do not actually appear until the following spring, as circular dead areas up to several feet in diameter. The surrounding grass will be green and healthy, only to be infiltrated with a few up to many round dead areas, sometimes filled with weeds, with little healthy turf to help crowd them out. If you have a severe case of Spring Dead Spot, the spots will re-apear every season, often in the same place. Certain varieties of Bermudagrass are more prone to this disease than others. Hard winters seem to increase the severity of the disease in the spring. It has nothing to do with whether you use a lawn service. It’s a disease, and it hits wherever it wants.
The dead areas will eventually fill in with Bermudagrass as summer progresses. It often takes much of the summer for this to happen though, so your lawn may not look real good for much of the early summer. You can speed up the fill-in by filling the circles with a 1⁄2” layer of good, black topsoil. This will help the surrounding grass fill in much quicker. You could also dig out the spots, replace with some good soil, and place a fresh piece of Bermuda sod on top. Try to match up with the same variety of Bermudagrass you now have, which may be difficult.
There is a preventative treatment we can do in the fall, which has been shown to lessen the severity of Spring Dead Spot the following spring. A special turf fungicide can be applied at a fairly specific time—at the first onset of cooler fall weather. That is when the fungus infects the turf. At LawnAmerica, we have treated many lawns in late September or early October. It has shown some fairly good results, with a decrease in the number of spots and quicker fill-in the following spring. Just because we apply the fungicide, it’s not a guarantee that you’ll have no spots the following spring. It’s now a slam-dunk deal. We would recommend you try this, and see if it works for your lawn. The fungicide cost is more than most other products we use, so our fee is 1.5 X your normal lawn treatment price. Contact us for more information, or to schedule this service.
Copyright - LawnAmerica, 2005