re: How do you select a lawn treatment service?

Do it yourself. Here's what I do at the beginning of each spring:

1. Buy Ortho Weed B Gone and spray it on all the weed patches growing in my front yard. I don't treat the back yard as much.

2. After I treat each patch of weeds with the Weed B Gone (usually takes about an hour or so), I spread, using a spreader, Scotts Weed and Feed.

3. Wait at least 2-4 hours - preferably overnight.

4. If your yard is small enough, take the time to spray on shower setting your entire front yard with a hose. This is much quicker and MUCH, MUCH more effective than just a sprinkler. If your yard is too big for that, then use the sprinkler but keep it on for at least three hours to allow for a good soaking but not too much so that it creates a lot of runoff. The idea here is to ensure that the Weed and Feed is wet enough to soak into the soil.

5. 4 weeks after step 4, Apply Scotts GreenMax to your yard with a spreader. Water again.

6. 3 weeks later, spread Scotts Weed and Feed again and water again.

Be sure to spray weed patches with Weed B Gone here and there as they pop up throughout this process. After the 2nd month, though, they should all be gone and won't come back until the end of the summer.

If you follow these 6 steps, your yard will be the envy of your neighbors. I've done this for years now and without fail, each spring around May, I have at least one neighbor stop me at the mailbox to ask what I did to my yard to get it looking so beautiful. I tell them everything except the GreenMax part - that's the secret.

It's a little more expensive than paying someone else to do it but you get the satisfaction that YOU did it yourself. Good luck!