Highest Degree of Maintenance the Yard

While attempting to find the deal of a lifetime try and find a home for sale with the perfect yard.  If you are looking at foreclosed and bank owned properties chances are these properties have been sitting vacant for many months and the weeds have taken over the yard.  How do you turn a weed infested yard into a lush lawn? 

The best tip is to talk to the neighbor with the best yard on the block.  This is a great way to get out and meet the neighbors.  If you are lucky they will be sick and tired of looking at the lawn and do the work for you.  Since we don't all live in a perfect world we will have to consider some alternative solutions. 

Hiring a lawn service to get the lawn up to par may be the solution.   Interview a number of forms and get written estimates detailing the steps taken and the chemicals involved.  This is another good place to begin by talking to the neighbors.  This may get you a discount because this will save the company a trip by doing a number of lawns in the same neighborhood. 

If you can not afford a lawn service or you take pride in doing the job yourself you can look on the Internet to gather information on lawn care.  Based on my own experiences and investigations I have found sites that have been able to identify every weed in my yard and some of them  that I thought were regular plants.  These sites offer information on weed control.

For lawns the best solution I have found is to go with a weed and feed in the early spring when there is dew on the lawn in the early morning.  The problem with this is many of the weeds, especially clover and dandelion tend to seed before they die.  I have found that applying about half the recommended amount in the early spring does a good job of controlling the weeds.  Follow up with a second application of half the recommended amount six to eight weeks later to kill off the weed that sprout up from the seeds that have sprouted.  Two years of this should get the lawn to a point that you can get out and pull the few remaining weeds by hand. 

Another fact I found out the hard way is that the fertilizers that claim to kill the seeds before they sprout do not kill clover seeds.  I don't think there is anything on the market that kills clover seeds.  Clover is a sneaky weed that seems to have a plan to outwit you.  Just when it looks like you defeated it a hundred plants will spring up and seed over night.  To combat these buy a good quality pump sprayer and a concentrated mixture of weed killer for lawns.  Mix it in the spray bottle per the instructions and walk over the lawn by rows spraying the weeds as you pass them.  Another thing you may want to do is walk over the lawn before you cut the grass and hand pick the clover that has seeds.  If you run it over with the lawn mower you will be scattering the seeds all over the area, which is falling into the plans of the clover.  I carry one of those plastic shopping bags to put the clover and seeds in.  Make sure the bag does not have holes in the bottom which will allow the seeds to fall out.

You can find that deal of a lifetime and get the perfect lawn with a little hard work, time and patients.