I want to get my lawn sprayed to prevent weeds and fertilize but don't want to spend a lot.
Thanks.
Earth Enterprises......
I think my chemlawn thing is 40 a month
I go the Lowes in the fall and buy the boxes of fertilizer that are on sale that cover the seasons. Last year I paid $20 for 3 bags that will cover by front and back lawn in the fall (bugs and pre emergent), spring (fertilizer and pre emergent), and a summer treatment (fertilizer, bugs, broad leaf). Then in the winter if we have a warm bit and weeds start showing up I spray to kill them off selectively. This weekend I spent 20 minutes putting on the spring stuff and then set my sprinkler to water it in for a bit.
I'd venture to bet that is the cheapest way of doing it.
It's too late for pre-emergent now. Crab grass has already germinated and MSMA is the only thing that's going to knock it back, of course that knocks down fescue too.
I do a pre-emergent in Feburary and water it in. I know they say you should wait until March, but I find that in Oklahoma that is too late except for dandelions. Poanna, henbit and clover have also already germinated, and once they're up you have to hit em with a broadleaf killer, or just do it manually with a weed puller.
If you hire a service you pay a lot of money for somthing that takes you 20 or 30 minutes to do once or twice a year. Get on the Scott's website and pull up their schedule (it's also on the bags). Don't buy off brand like Viagro. The grains are too course and they don't dissolve enough to give you a good barior.
I kill anything green in early February. Any crabgrass that was already germinated is dead. Anything that germinated in the couple weeks sense is minimal and can be hand pulled or over run by well fertilized Bermuda.
We are approaching the annual battle of the lawns. My neighbor has some kind that is softer greens early and encroaches into my yard. Come summer mine comes on strong and takes the space back and then some. I'd say my lawn ends up gaining a net of 6" per year. Kinda funny . . .
Atwoods sells the concentrated agricultural-grade stuff. If you know what you're doing, that's probably the cheapest way to go.
I usually use a backpack sprayer and spray the bejezus out of my lawn with Glyphos (Roundup), and 2,4 D (broad-leaf killer). Glyphos won't kill dormant bermuda, it'll nuke the crap out of any grassy weeds that are green. 2,4 D will burn the crap out of a tree. Gotta be careful, no wind is preferable.
I took this lawn over last year; quickly found out that there's almost no bermuda left. I managed to burn down the crabgrass, but it's literally loaded with some weird kind of johnson grass. Too much to use MSMA I think. If the few patches of bermuda don't begin to edge out the johnson grass, I'm probably gonna have to re-sod.