This post was written by my husband, Timothy.
When you’re young you have ideas and expectations about how things are going to be when you reach adulthood. Getting married, having a family, a great job, a flying car, and a dream home with a beautiful green yard for my kids to play on, were some of my dreams. I know what you’re thinking, one of those dreams is just that a dream and nothing more. Having a beautiful green yard in a time of constant running around is just not possible..or is it?
Between full time jobs, school activities, after-school activities, weekend commitments, and everyday errands, how in the world does one find time to do all that is needed to achieve a green yard? Read on to find out!
I consider myself to be a do-it-yourselfer, like many guys do. During the eight years that we’ve owned our house repaired the roof when a tree went through it, fixed pipes under the house in the crawl space, replaced the waterline to the house, and built a swing set of my own design in the back yard. With a list like that it sounds like there is nothing I can’t tackle. Oh, but there is!
A beautiful green yard.
Sure, if you were to drive by our home you would see a green yard but as you got closer, the truth would reveal itself. Until the last two weeks, our green lawn was only about 28% grass. The majority, about the other 72% of our yard, was a variety of weeds, each their own unique shade of green. I say majority because spread out in no particular pattern all over the year, are dirt patches. The yard doesn’t look like this because of a lack of trying by any means. I’ve aerated the yard, reseeded, used fertilizer, added lime, watered, raked, had heartfelt talks, and even played music. Granted I may not of done all of these things the exact way that they are supposed to be done but give me a break I’m only one guy.
I thought about getting a service but at the point when I should sign up, the cheap stubborn part of me speaks up. “You can do all of the things they are going to do and you can do it cheaper!” For years I listened to that voice, but not any more. I figured that if I can be wrong about things like thinking that as long as the lawn mower is working why get it serviced, I mean I do check the oil level and put gas in it, that’s all that matters right? Sadly no, but that’s another story.
It turns out that my inner voice and I were wrong about a lot of things. When you compare the price of the materials, the act of creating a lawn maintenance schedule and following it, along with all the work it takes to do it all, using a service is a great deal. The amount of time that is saved alone is worth every penny.
So far our service with TruGreen has been exceptional. During the first visit a TruGreen manager walked me through everything that was an issue with the yard. He pointed out all of the different kinds of weeds in our yard, and there were quite a few. It turns out that even what I thought was grass was mostly weed. He pointed out the areas that were heavily shaded and suggested that I remove a few branches from the surrounding trees so more light could make its way through to the yard. He discussed what needed to be done to the yard in order for it to become the beautiful green yard full of grass I dreamed of having. He talked for awhile about the process and the different things that would be applied to the yard but to be honest that’s about the time my ADD kicked in so I only got about half of it. That’s how much information our TruGreen representative gave me! When he was done I asked “what do I need to do to make all of this happen?”, trying to play off the fact that I checked out for a few minutes. His reply was “nothing.” Now that threw me off. Surely there was something that I needed to do, to help. He assured me that the only thing I needed to do was make sure the yard was watered as needed and when the time came to aerate and overseed, I would have to rake the yard to get it ready. Wow, that was wonderful to hear!
I put customer service pretty high on my list of priorities as a consumer. I’ve left stores because the employees were too busy talking to each other to acknowledge me. Having said that, TruGreen has provided great customer service. Everyone from TruGreen that I have come into contact with has been courteous and knowledgeable. Even the techs that come when I’m not home leave a note saying that they were sorry they missed me and included detailed information about what they did to the yard and what I need to do to maintain their work, if anything.
After the first few visits from TruGreen the weeds were almost all gone. Since the yard was mostly weeds though, this posed a small problem. The dirt patches were growing in size and increasing in number. They offered to put down some rie as a filler but I opted not to. Soon after, the time came for them to aerated the yard and overseed it. Since then, for the last two weeks, I have watered the yard like my life depended on it and it is paying off! The grass seeds are sprouting and the dirt patches are slowly changing to green grassy patches. Words can not explain the feeling of joy that I’m feeling!
Because the grass is getting a good start before winter arrives, it will form a solid root system during the Winter. Come Spring, it’s on! Next year the green Easter eggs won’t be so easy to find.
If you are struggling to create a green lawn for your family, I highly recommend that you call TruGreen today!
Written by Timothy Hagan
