The Super Official Homeowners Thread

[ScottyB]

With how often you are supposed to fertilize bermuda grass down here, I ran some numbers from some quotes we got and a big "savings" cost of DIY lawnwork seems to be when you buy a cheap bag of fertilizer and spread it yourself. Those "ChemLawn" companies have to make a killing on each service based on what they charge and frankly so many of them use such a hodgepodge of chemicals that our kids when we have them would probably develop developmental disorders just running around in the backyard in their bare feet.

we have, and/or are currently trying to fight this battle. our bermuda grass grows pretty well but its the weeds coming in during the spring/fall that are total killers...they die off during the summer but the seasonal battle gets worse every year. i've tried using pre-emergent weed control/fertilizer from a seed spreader and the results just sucked - probably because i'm not doing it right. we hired a Scott's lawn service to do our front and side yards and we leave our back yard untouched for exactly the exposure reasons you mentioned with kids and our veggie gardens.

the results have been so much better than me trying to do it that its been "tolerable" to just pay someone. that said, i still need to do something with the back yard because its getting overtaken by weeds and garbage moving in from other yards.

YMMV, just get really good at figuring out when, and how much to apply that stuff on your own with consideration to rains and moisture, because i think some of that stuff can't get too wet too soon or it won't work, or something like that.