[graciegirl]

When we moved here we were snowbirds and we we needed to have a lawn service and we just lucked into "Earl". I can't say his service name or talk host will yell at me.

Earl and his brother and his crew did a fine job on our Camellia's little yard and cut it and trimmed the bushes and degrassed the sprinkler heads and weeded (chemically) and edged all for $55 a month. We bought a hand held fertilizer depenser and fertilized ourselves.

We sold that home a couple weeks ago and Earls service had recently increased to $65 a month.

I think we will take care of the lawn at our new home because we will be year 'rounders and because it is much smaller than our Northern lawn and because we like to do stuff like that.

You need to know this about lawn services. They aren't all alike. They don't even service the same to all their clients. Many are enterprising young men who have come here because they need a job and they bring with them their skills, and work ethic...some great, some good, some not so good and...many people who hire them for year 'round quickly learn that the grass doesn't grow very fast during the winter here and will decide to hire them for only the fast growing time. That makes it difficult to earn a year 'round living.

So now you have villagers who don't sign up for year 'round service and villagers who aren't here in the summer and you have an opportunity to have service that isn't so great.

I suggest that you praise good work. They don't get much of that. I also suggest that you tweak your yard yourself if you are inclined. We did the fertilizing and would hand weed. We also told others about Earl which sent him new business and made him do even a better job for us. (But he always did a good job, so I am not sure of the last part...but it doens't hurt)

I enjoy going to the extension meetings about how and what grows in Florida and on Tuesdays about noon (I think) at Truman Rec center thay have extension agents to answer questions about wildlife and flora and fauna and lawns and palms etc.

(Please someone correct me if I am wrong about the last part.)