Lawn service recommendations
 

Hi all, newbie here..Village of Belle Aire..looking for reasonable lawn service for mowing, trimming, weeding. Got estimate from Massey, seems high and do we need grass cut weekly all year? Thanks in advance

Weekly grass cutting is not necessary every month of the year. However, most lawn services around here charge a monthly fee whether you have weekly cuts in one month or every other week. Weekly cuts are necessary during warm and hot months; not so much in colder months when every other month service will suffice and keep your property looking nicely manicured.

Not sure what you are seeking. Some people want and pay for full service, weeding, fertilizing, insecticides, fungicides, bush trimming etc etc.

It is a matter of choice. We have a guy who only mows and edges. We've been here for nine years. Truth it is a tough job. This is florida. Imagine mowing lawns in this HEAT.
We always pay on time, others frankly are more demanding then we are. If, they leave grass cuttings behind, I do not call them and have them come back, I rake it up and it is done. These people, in 9 years we are on our third mowing guy. We pay at the end of the month for the next month. First one did a good job, probably the best. We paid him,the check was cashed and he just disappeared-stealing a month from us. The next one perhaps not as good as the first but good enough. Family issues he quit in the middle of the month he did refund us he offered the whole month we only accepted half for the two weeks he did not do it. We are now on the third guy. Nice guy. Quality of his work, probably the worst of the three. But, so far he has lasted 3 years.

Proper lawn mowing in Florida. Fortunately your lawn can't read. It is suggested that you do not cut off more than 1/3 of the grass leaf. To do that in peak growing season you would need to mow twice a week. None of the pros will do that they do it once a week. As I said good enough is for me good enough. We pay these guys every month.
In the summer they more than earn their money in the winter they mow every two or three weeks but we still pay them the same.

Personally, we've lived in private homes, lawns etc most of the time. I am older than I was just yesterday. It seems my back is older than some of the other parts. This is the first time in my life that I have hired someone to mow my lawn. In high school I ran my own lawn mowing service. Perhaps, explains why we pay promptly, buy sodas for our mowing guy and are not demanding

Cheaper, my wife and I do the weeding, the fertilizing, hedge trimming, etc. I do not pay myself or my wife. Don't tell her. I cannot get over that she helps.

Ask your neighbors for recommendation

Newbie here too. We have a guy that does a good job on the lawn, mows and trims, $60 per month. Augustyne's :awn Care, 352-480-9494.

Back in Virginia we fertilized our lawn twice a year, sprayed weeds as they popped up, put down insect killer. That worked well.

But this is a different climate and different grass. We have been here 3 months and done nothing except mow. We haven't even turned on the watering system. Lawn looks OK, same as everyone else on the block.

What services are really needed? Can we do everything ourselves?

Mowing, trimming, hardscape and plant design, palm tree, plant and hedge trim......Showtime Landscaping, Bill Law, (352) 303-1334. Lawn treatment, plant and palm tree fertilization ......Green Smith, Hoke Smith (352) 303-0205

Here’s the problem, the good ones are booked and not taking any more clients. Mine is okay, however, i can’t replace him.

Suggestion. First determine what type of grass you have. Likely either St Augustine or Empire Zoysea. The care is different. As to proper care you will find endless conflicting advice. I would look it up on the internet. As far as Virginia, you may want to attend one of the lectures from cooperative extension. We've lived here for roughly 9 years. I still remember an introductory lecture about lawn care. The speaker said how many of you are northerners? His punch line was forget everything you knew.

My suggestion, first thing to do is a soil test. You go to cooperative extension and they have bags for samples and an instruction sheet. If, I recall the test was like $7.00 and the full test is like $14.00. Most of the villages is sandy clay with a lot of lime stone.
PH in places is as high as 8 alkaline. A lawn should be 6.5. Cooperative extension will help you as far as what to do.

Yes, you can do it yourself. Re: Twice a year fertilizer. We get a lot of rain. Slow release fertilizers last roughly 6 weeks. Twice a year sounds like Kentucky blue grass it grows in cool weather spring and fall and goes dormant in summer heat. What we have are southern grasses. To steal his punch line, you likely need to forget everything you knew or a lot of it. I'm not familiar with Va but, for us it is a bit of a shock there are no dandelions here. That is good news and bad news. No shortage or weeds we did not have before we moved to Florida.

I'm looking for an all-in-one service. Does anyone have a recommendation for one of those?

Do not use PAX or ISOM. Poor service.
8 months a year cut weekly, 4 mos cut every other week is the norm. Rates are the same every month through out the year.

Truth be told they are all the same. If they do a good job their not reliable. If their reliable they don’t do a very good job. I’m a bit picky so I cut my own

I have found 100% of the lawn services to be relatively high on the incompetence scale, in seeing the yards around. So if you know of one who IS competent, please post. Most swerve into neighbor yards instead of mowing straight, leave huge clumps of grass, broken sprinkler heads, missed patches of grass, especially at the corners due to their oversized equipment. These are small lots and can't be effectively and attractively maintained by large equipment. I will do my own until I can't physically anymore. You can always tell who does their own and who does not. Unfortunately the high school kids that were available in other communities to hire, don't exist here. Its a conundrum. Ron

Get to know your neighbors. You may find an established provider that will do your lawn due to proximity. Weeding is the most expensive item on your list. It may be harder to find a provider for that, as most independent lawn cutters don’t include the service. A member of the mowing crew might be willing to do it for extra money. We have found that using pine straw in beds a la villages helps reduce, not eliminate, the amount of weeds. Rock beds seem to become weed beds.

Massey, as far as I know, does not do any mowing or trimming.
They will provide lawn control only. no flower bed except for palm fertilizer which is a joke.
My freshly planted Robellini Palm is dead.
They will buy new one on the contract.
As for mowing.
Sit out front, enjoy your coffee, and write down phone numbers from the 1 million landscaper trucks floating thru TV.

Best advice. Talk to your neighbors.

I am ready to toss my mower guy.

Again moderators of TOTV.
These comments were so far off topic.

POG MO HOIN

Full Service: CHOICE MAINTENANCE. Well known established company.

I use Dean’s and have been happy with their service. They are very responsive, have great communication, and the crew who takes care of my yard are friendly, nice guys. I’m completely satisfied.

You’re pretty funny

The good news is Massey does do mowing. The bad news is that they do not do it very well. Their own people have told me to stay away from Massey for mowing.

Just started using Massey for irrigation. In about four months have had four technicians come.

Sprinkler system was not working properly so called them early Thursday morning asking for tech to call me. Late Friday afternoon he knocks on my door.

Showed him problem and he seems to have fixed it. Asked him why he didnt call first and said he didnt get a message to call first. Asked him how he would know why I called if I was not home and he didnt appreciate the question.

Thinking of asking a neighbor to teach me how the system works and how to replace sprinkler heads and doing myself.

contact Laguna! (352) 638-4347 They did a great job for me while I was in Calumet Grove. Unfortunately they won’t come down south of 44.

Check out True Green. Expensive but I am reasonably happy. I use an individual to mow.

Massey is full lawn Care service. They mow, trim and blow. They also fertilize and insect control with a sperate truck. I'm signed up with them for the house and lawn.

I just fired Massey for irrigation. They were only spending about 3 minutes for maintenance, and didn't even run all of the sprinklers. Although, they will come out and fix a sprinkler leak.

I also fired them for pest control because I have never had bugs in my house. I sprayed Ortho Home Defense outside my house and I have my fingers crossed.

Massey just started mowing my grass. They said they would mow every week, but, they only mowed it 2 times in August. I may need to fire them for mowing.

I expect to fire them for irrigation when the year is up.

Who will you use for irrigation?

DIY. But, Massey did say they will still come out if I need to have a leak fixed, but, it may take a little longer.

When they take two days when you are a paying customer wonder how much longer when you do not pay them?

Can understand being busy and understaffed but when I call and ask for the head guy in irrigation cannot get a call back makes me lose any sympathy.

I used ACI for irrigation. Asked them to show me what they do, with the exception of replacing a broken pipe under ground or installing a new line I can do the rest of the stuff myself. Don’t know when I will need them again. Perhaps once annually. They did a good job.

Asking alot

[QUOTE=DAVES;1995310]Suggestion. First determine what type of grass you have. Likely either St Augustine or Empire Zoysea. The care is different.

Thanks. Good info. How do you tell what kind of grass you have?

Sprinkler heads are probably the easiest DIY you'll find here. You can change spray head heads or the entire sprinkler if it's the rotor type. Just need a little shovel and a bucket to save the "dirt." Replace SPRINKLER HEAD in 5 Minutes - Rainbird - Hunter - Orbit - YouTube (and probably 100 more similar videos).

You asked for a full service company that mows, trims bushes, fertilizes, sprays for cinch bugs, and takes care of sprinklers. We have been using Chad's Lawn Care for several years now and, for the most part, have been satisfied with their services. I don't know if they are taking on new customers and I also don't know if they are covering the new southern areas of The Villages. But here is their phone number, in case you want to contact them - 352-787-8303 or email info@chadslawnand landscape.com

So what is the estimate amount and when you mentioned weeding does that mean pulling weeds or just spraying and do you know if that is weeds in the flower/shrub areas or just the grass?

Massey Full lawn care service
 

We have prepaid full service for the year from MASSEY LAWNCARE. Their PREMIUM package for mowing, shrub trimming, edging, weeding, sraying for bugs,fertilizing, etc. They were good the first year spotty the second year, and this year downright horrible. We have gotten threats from the architectural review board saying we will be fined $50 per day until our front yard is brought back up to standards. Extreemly disappointed in MASSEY. Being SNOWBIRDS leaves us very vulnerable.
Looking for new company.

From what am hearing, the ability of being able to retain or hire workers is impacting most of the lawn and yard maintenance companies, just the same as it is for all of the other service companies. It seems like ALL companies are having a hell of a time of retaining employees, and an even harder time addressing absences due to Covid illnesses or quarantine requirements. I wouldn't be surprised if that is one of the reasons there has been a change in the performance of lawn care services lately. So finding a lawn service company that can handle both mowing and trimming may be really difficult. And you may want to be a little cautious about "firing" your current provider before you get a new one lined up. Just a word of caution and a suggestion for a little bit of understanding to be given to your current provider. It seems like they are facing the same situation as the restaurants and other companies around the country are experiencing. Who knows, if this keeps up we may have to start mowing our own lawn.

This is all very true. Sadly. My perception is that MOST of the lawns in TV are so little that there is not a lot of money to be made taking care of one of them, so, the companies that thrive are the ones that optimize the process of lawns per manhour. Hence chrome plated v8 riding monsters to mow 100 sqft of the front yard in 12.5 seconds. (a little exaggerated). Combine the significant pressure to keep the man-hours per yard down and the constant churn of employees and the large number of "well off" owners that don't want to mow their yards, and you have a recipe for high prices and poor customer service.

We fired Massey because we have two large dogs that are allowed in our backyard (we have a CYV so they can't get out). We gave them instructions that they were NOT to go into the backyard unless they first rang our doorbell and let us know they were there, so we could ensure the dogs were in the house. 3 times they changed crews in the first year, and every time the new crew failed to get the instructions. 3 times our large dogs were let out of our yard to run free in the neighborhood - leaving us responsible. That was bad enough, but then the last new crew scalped our yard - down to the dirt. That was a year ago, and it still hasn't fully recovered. They did the same to several of our neighbor's yards. When we complained they sent a person out to inspect the damage. He said he was sorry, but the person driving the riding mower was unfamiliar with it and had set it too low. There was nothing they could do for us. Seriously? They got fired that day.

The next lawn care service was Fertigator, we gave them the same instructions. They also left the gate door open occasionally. The last time, I went out and said that I had left instructions that they were not to go into the backyard unless we were informed. The person I assumed was the crew leader YELLED at me, that they didn't have time. They rang the doorbell and we would never answer so they just went ahead and went into the backyard. So, they got fired that day. The instructions were not to try and if we didn't answer do it anyway, it was DO NOT go into the back yard unless we tell them to. PERIOD.

Now we have been waiting 3 weeks for the "new" lawn care service to start. They came by gave us a quote for what we wanted to be done. We accepted the quote and they told us they would start the next week. The next week came and went and they didn't show up. So we called, the person that answered said they had us down for only trimming bushes, which would happen next month. We told them we had the quote and it was mowing, weeding trimming, etc. full meal deal. They apologized for the confusion and said they would be out in the next week. The next week came and went and we called them again, they said they were swamped with COVID, etc. We suggested it would have been appropriate to call us and reschedule. They apologized and said they would be out before the end of the month. It is the 31st. They have not been here. If they are not here today, they will be fired too.

When we moved here, I purchased a good electric mower, edger, and trimmer, and leaf blowers. For the first couple of months, I did it all, it took almost 30 minutes every few weeks - not a big deal, but my wife talked me into letting someone else do it because I was facing major surgery. I agreed and sold my equipment. Today, I told my wife I was sick and tired of dealing with lawn care companies and I was going back to doing it myself as long as I am able.

There is a real opportunity for an enterprising person to create a company to do lawn care here. The idea I have is to have small franchises, of 2 or three people. Each franchise being basically independent and doing a small number of homes - like 4 or so per day, and doing total care. Charge a premium, but give premium customer care. There are a LOT of owners here that are unhappy with the big company solutions that don't work, and I would be willing to pay a premium. Heck, we paid Fertigator $1800 for a year ($150/mth) plus there were other payments for special-case work being done.

$150/mth for a small postage stamp Courtyard Villa? Seriously? I would pay that again, for a person that would actually reliably take care of my yard and landscaping.

One other thing we need to remember is that their are only so many people in the tri county area that provide these types of services and with The Villages continually growing, the demand for these services will stretch available manpower to the limit. Even though the population of Sumter county has grown considerably, that growth is primarily us Villagers. And we all want the same services. I suspect that the population of working age men and women in this same area hasn't grown in the same proportion as seniors, so the number of people to work in these service areas is getting stretched thin. Look at all the new homes built or going to be built south of 44 and consider how many additional workers it is going to require in order to provide services (including lawn & yard work). I sometimes wonder if the growth of The Villages will eventually exceed what the surrounding communities can provide for store, restaurants, and yes, lawn maintenance employees. Just a thought.