A beautiful and well-maintained lawn is a wonderful space where you can relax and spend quality time with your family and friends or sit out by yourself to watch the sunset. You can plant your choice of flowers, shrubs, and trees in the lawn to add to its aesthetic appeal and increase the value of your property, but it’s also necessary to think about its maintenance. If you don’t have the time and skills to take care of your lawn, hiring professional lawn care service providers to do it for you is the best option.

What do lawn care professionals do?
Lawn care involves a wide range of services like mowing, seeding, weeding, trimming, watering, pruning, pest control, and landscape design. Here are the different lawn care services that professional service providers commonly offer:

• Mowing: This is one of the most basic and important lawn maintenance jobs. It lends a neat and even look to the grass and improves the appearance of your lawn.
• Overseeding: If there are bare patches in the lawn, overseeding can help deal with it. Professionals add seeds, manure, and other growth-inducing materials to the problem areas, and they may also mix grass of different strengths to make your lawn greener.
• Watering or irrigation: Watering is important to maintain a healthy and green lawn. While you can install an automatic sprinkler system to take care of your lawn watering needs, it is not the best option, as watering the lawn too often can spoil the plants and grass. An experienced professional will know the right watering techniques and how much water different types of plants and grass need.
• Aeration: Lawn aeration is done to allow water, air, and nutrients to reach the roots easily. When the soil becomes hard and compact, lawn care professionals use core accelerators and other equipment to pull out plugs of soil and loosen it up. The resultant holes allow air, water, fertilizers, and organic matter to reach the roots and promote healthy growth of the grass and plants in your lawn.
• Fertilizing: Fertilizers contain important nutrients that help keep the lawn lush and green, so they are important for efficient lawn care. There are various fertilizers available for different soil and grass types, and professionals test the soil and examine the grass to choose the right ones for your lawn.
• Weed removal: Certain weeds grow at a fast rate and can cause extensive damage to the other plants in your lawn. They may also prevent sunlight, air, water, and nutrients from reaching the grass, so it is essential to get rid of them at the earliest. Professionals not only remove weeds physically but also use herbicides and other chemicals to control their growth.
• Mulching: Adding compost or mulch helps improve soil conditions. Professional lawn care services include adding organic matter that offers beneficial nutrients, neutralizes the soil’s pH, and improves the health of your lawn.
• Trimming: Trimming and pruning are important aspects of lawn care services. Professionals trim the shrubs, bushes, hedges, and trees and remove the dead and dry woods for a neat look. Timely trimming and pruning can help control and redirect growth, improve plant or tree health, and lower the risk of falling branches.
• Pest and disease control: Certain pests can infest your lawn and spoil the grass, plants, and shrubs. Luckily, professionals can identify the problem areas and take appropriate steps to deal with it. If there are moles or raccoons around your lawn, the experts use repellents and traps to deal with them. They also use pesticides to eradicate bugs, worms, and insects from your lawn.
• Sod installation: This is done to get a lush green lawn quickly, and it is the best option for creating a lawn from scratch. Before installing the sod, professionals test the soil and determine the best plan for healthy and proper grass growth.

Things to consider while hiring lawn care services
While planning your lawn’s maintenance and care, the toughest part is to find a reliable lawn care service provider. Here’s what you need to consider while hiring professional lawn care services:

• Decide the services you need: Before you start searching for a lawn care company, make a list of the services you’re looking for. This can include basic services like mowing and weeding or others like fertilizing and spraying pesticides.
• Start your research early: Start looking for lawn care companies in the winter months so that they can offer their services as soon as the new season begins in March. You can look for lawn care companies online or ask your family and friends for references. Talk to a few companies to know about the services they offer, and explore your options, especially if you want to stick to a budget. You can also ask your neighbors about the lawn care services they use.
• Check the company’s reputation: Once you have shortlisted the companies, compare their services and costs. You can also visit their respective websites and check the customer reviews to get an idea about their competence, reputation, and ratings.
• Check their experience and qualifications: Compare the number of years each company has been offering lawn care services for. Companies offering reliable and timely services stay in business for long, and they will also have trained and qualified employees who can take good care of your lawn and plants. So, checking a company’s experience in the field can help you choose professionals who will lend an eye-catching look to your yard.
• Verify their license: Ensure that the shortlisted companies are licensed according to the local or state by-laws. While it may be cheaper to hire the services of an unlicensed company, it is always better to opt for a licensed one for safe, professional, and reliable services.
• Verify the insurance policy: Ask the shortlisted companies if they cover any damages caused to your property during lawn maintenance work. Additionally, their insurance should cover employee accidents and injuries while they’re working.
• Talk to the service providers: Talk to the shortlisted companies about the services they offer, the products and tools they use, the precautions they take to carry out the work safely, and also clear any other doubts you may have.
• Check whether they provide a guarantee: This is important to ensure that you get the desired services. For instance, if the company professionals have treated your lawn for pests and other conditions but you’re not satisfied with the results, they should be willing to do it again without any extra charges.
• Get quotes: After narrowing down the companies that meet your criteria, ask them for personalized quotes. Request them to inspect the lawn and give a quote accordingly. This way, they can look for special concerns and offer the best quote. You can then review and compare the companies based on the pricing of the contract, the services they offer, the length of commitment, payment options, and other details before making a decision.
• Ask for references: If you’re not convinced with the online reviews, you can ask a service provider for references. Genuine companies will provide you with references without any hesitation, and you can check the references and other details before zeroing in on a company that suits your requirements and pocket.

Benefits of hiring lawn care professionals
A lawn or yard is the first thing people notice when they enter your property, and how your lawn looks has a bearing on what people think about you and your home. Also, leaving your lawn unattended can cause insects and pests to infest it, which may also invade your home, so keeping your lawn prim and proper is an important part of house maintenance. That, being said, lawn care might add to your troubles if you can’t find the time to tend to your lawn amid your busy schedule, but that’s where lawn care professionals come in! Here’s why you should hire professional lawn care services:

• Expertise: Lawn care professionals have the expertise and experience to do the job well and make your lawn green and beautiful. They have sufficient knowledge about plants, fertilizers, manure, and everything else needed to keep your lawn in good shape. If your lawn has weeds, dead patches, or pests, professional lawn care services will take care of them the right way.
• Professional tools: Efficient lawn care and maintenance is impossible without the right tools. So, if you don’t have the tools or the skills to use them safely, hiring professionals is the best option. Lawn care professionals will bring the necessary equipment, and you can always trust a team of professionals to do the job efficiently without taking too much time.
• Consistent care: When you hire a professional lawn care company’s services, they will take good care of your lawn or yard on a regular basis. The professionals will regularly visit your place to do the maintenance work to keep your lawn neat and pest-free.
• Time-saving: Lawn care is a strenuous and time-consuming task. It involves mowing the grass, pruning the shrubs, removing weeds, spraying fertilizers, mulching, edging, seeding, and much more. If you have a busy schedule and cannot spend the required amount of time in the yard, professional lawn care services are the next best thing to opt for.
• Less physical labor: Lawn care can be taxing for those who do not have the expertise for the job. It involves more physical labor and can result in injuries and cause sore muscles if you’re not careful with the tools, so it’s best to leave it to the professionals.
• Cost-effective: While you have to pay for lawn care services, you need not spend on buying expensive equipment, fertilizers, chemicals, and other products. An experienced company will offer their services when you need them and keep your yard free of pests and infestations. Besides, hiring professional services proves to be cheaper in the long run.
• Safety concerns: Lawn care involves using sharp and heavy tools like lawnmowers, edging shears, and gardening tools. These maintenance tools are not easy to handle and can cause serious cuts and injuries, but professionals have the training and expertise to use these tools the right way to achieve the best results.

Cost of lawn care services
The cost of lawn care services depends on various factors, including:

• The size of your lawn
• The range of services required
• Property location
• Whether your property is residential or commercial
• Climate and lawn health
• The types of tools and products used
• The experience and expertise of the service provider
• Landscaper insurance

Here are some common lawn care and maintenance services and their prices:

• Lawn mowing: The cost of mowing a lawn largely depends on the location and lawn size, and you may have to pay around $60 for professional lawn mowing services on an average. Most companies charge a fixed rate for every visit and offer lawn mowing, leaf-blowing, edging, and clean-up services.
• Trimming or pruning: The average price for trimming a tree is between $290 and $640, but the cost may vary depending on the tree’s size.
• Lawn fertilization: A professional may charge you somewhere around $12 per hour for fertilizing your lawn, but experienced service providers may charge you as high as $60 per hour for the work.
• Seeding: Seeding a lawn may cost you anything between $990 and $1,600. Reseeding smaller patches will cost you less than reseeding your entire lawn.
• Weeding: Weeding needs to be done on a regular basis, and the average cost per hour is usually between $12 and $40.
• Leaf removal: Hiring a professional to remove the leaves from your lawn may cost you somewhere between $210 and $325.

A lawn is an important part of your property, so keeping it lush green and well-maintained will increase your home’s value. And if you don’t have the right tools and expertise to keep your lawn prim and proper, you can opt for professional lawn care services for the best results at affordable rates.