When you hire someone to mow your lawn, you’re looking for a partner you can count on. It makes sense to forge a relationship for the full mowing season and beyond. This usually means better service and better prices than going with a piecemeal lawn care provider. Here are five questions to ask to make sure you’ll get high-quality, reliable service.
How Often Do You Mow?
Your contractor should commit to mowing once each week unless you request otherwise. In some cases, you may want to skip a mowing during a drought. But in general, a weekly mowing during the 30-week season will keep your lawn looking its best. Your lawn care provider should adapt the height of the cut to fit the season. For example, go for 3 to 3.5 inches during the wet, heavy-growth spring season, and scale up to 4 or 4.5 inches during the dry summer months to keep your lawn looking lush.
Do I Need to Sign a Contract for Mowing Services?
When hiring someone for lawn maintenance, a contract is essential. The contract protects both you as a consumer and your service provider and ensures consistent service. An extended agreement allows your lawn maintenance company to offer you the best price by guaranteeing business throughout the season. A yearly contract enables you to spread the cost of 30 seasonal mowings over the full year. It makes routine, high-quality lawn care affordable for just about everyone.
What Other Services Are Included in My Lawn Maintenance Plan?
Most high-quality landscaping companies include basic lawn maintenance with their mowing services to keep yards looking tidy and clean. Make sure you find out whether lawn maintenance includes:
- Edging sidewalks, curbs and flower beds
- Trimming around buildings and permanent structures
- Clearing clippings from patios, decks, sidewalks
You can also ask whether your mowing company bags clippings or practices grass-cycling. When your lawn is mowed regularly, leaving small clippings on your lawn has nutritional benefits to the soil, including preserving moisture and adding nitrogen.
What Extras Can Help with a Healthy Lawn?
In addition to basic lawn maintenance, ask if your service provider offers lawn care add-ons for an additional fee. You may not want or need these right away, but they may be something to consider as you move forward. Lawn care is so much more than mowing, so it’s great to know what your landscaper offers in terms of overall lawn health. Ask about:
- Fertilization.
- Weed control, including pre-emergent weed solutions in early spring to stop weeds in their tracks.
- Lime application to keep your soil’s pH healthy.
- Insect management, including insecticides to promote plant health and also control ticks and fleas.
- Aeration and overseeding in the fall for a healthy lawn next spring.
Are You Licensed and Insured?
While you may get a bargain from a one-man operation with an old mower in the back of a truck, you never know when something can go wrong. For so many of us, our yard is our pride and joy. Choose a company that’s fully licensed and insured just in case.
Finding a Lawn Service You Trust
At the end of the day, asking the right questions is about establishing trust. For more than three decades, Epling Landscaping and Lawn Service has offered everything from basic mowing and lawn maintenance to in-depth lawn care to complete landscaping services. As a trusted Loudoun-based service provider, we value consistency, communication, and customer service. We’re all about giving your lawn exactly what it needs, whether this means weekly mowing during heavy growth periods or holding back during dry spells. We will customize our service and plan to your lawn’s unique needs. You can count on us to be clear from the get-go about how we operate and how we bill. We value our relationships in the community, and questions are always welcome.
