Scotts Lawn care VS. TruGreen

[Boogaard]

I am looking these professinal services to come take care of the yard for me this year. Has anyone every used any of these services before and what have your expierences been? Thanks for any input!

[Quetico]

I have subcontracted work for my projects to Pro Turf in Lakeville. They have always done a great job for a reasonable price. I dont like using big names because generally you get big prices without much customer service backing.

[Boogaard]

Thanks I will give them a call!

[LwnmwnMan2]

Where are you located??

There's many other options to work with, for the exact reasons Quetico has stated.

[Boogaard]

I live in Elk River.. I dont want to pay a bunch of money of course but im willing to pay for a quality service.

[ottertailguy]

I used to work for Trugreen many years ago and I can say they will treat you right. But you have to do your part too. Watering and cutting you turf at the right times/length. If there are problems call them right away, like weeds aren't dying they will come out for a free service call. They usually want to treat your yard 5 times but have them skip the the 3rd treatment because it to hot that time of year. And make sure they contact you the night before so you know they are coming.

[Moose]

I agree with Quetico. Try to find a local company. I was in the buisness for 15 years and the local company always gave better service and if you have a problem you can get a local person to answer your question not a cuctomer service rep in another state. Just my opinion

[LwnmwnMan2]

IMO, Scotts and Tru-Green are marketing companies first.

They're not service oriented companies.

I feel this way because of all the mailings that one will get, all the fancy TV / radio ads and all the phone calls you'll get once you're a customer, from people in another state, as Moose said.

If you have a local newspaper, you can probably find an ad or two in the back of that for local contractors.

However, if you DO call them, make sure they do their own apps. Alot of guys will sub out the fertilizing and chemicals to these big companies because they don't want to deal with all the regulation and paperwork from the state.

Another source might be to go to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's HSOforum. They will have a pesticide license lookup on their home page. You can search by area to see which companies are licensed in that area of town.

[Boogaard]

Thanks for al the input! going to check a few more places out!

[Bjjams]

I had Trugreen do my lawn last year because it was in horrible condition. They were fairly reasonable and my lawn ended up turning out pretty good. I only did 4 of the 5 applications they suggested. There was a couple things that made me mad though. I told them to call before they came next becasue I was overseeding and they ended up coming anyways about a week later and killed off all the new seed. I called and ended up getting that application free. And they sure like to call you and send you junk mail for more services like seeding, aerating. This year though, with the help of FM, I'll be doing it myself.

[Boogaard]

I did it myself last year and i seemed to get a lot of rings in my grass, selected brown areas im assuming from bugs!? My grass looked like it was from one of the masters courses early in the spring but as the year went on i think the BUGS really got to me! I ended up with dead grass mixed in with the good grass raked it all out and reseeded but it seemed like a never ending battle. My yard is roughly 7000sqft I have some left over fertilizer from last year as well. I am debating about doing it myself still as well. Anyone have anytips to what kills the bugs and deturns the rings and disease?!

[Ron M]

Plant hosta. Spread mulch. Go fishing. Seriously, you can't kill that hosta!

[fishuhalik]

I'd just like to say something. I work for TruGreen as a sales rep, I've been with the company for 2 1/2 years now. First of all, it's the best company I've ever worked for. They treat us great, there's tremendous benefits, and I feel we do a great job. Yes, we mess up. Being that we're a service company that treats over 19,000 lawns just in the east Metro, there are times that we slip up. And as you guys know, the squeaky wheel gets the grease. Typically you don't hear from the people that are pleased, it's the person that had a bad experience that tells everyone and their brother about it.

Granted, we do alot of marketing, and yes, we do call quite a bit, but we're honestly trying to do what is best for your lawn. I'll give a couple of examples. We start doing our renewals Jan. 1st. We call all our customers. For some reason, some people don't like picking up the phone. So we do keep calling them. Not because we're trying to sell them something they don't need, we just need to know if we should set up service for them for the year or not. And when someone tells me they want to cancel, I do still try to keep their business. It may come as a shock to some people, but we hate to loose customers, and we try to do anything we can to keep them. If someone tells me that we killed their lawn last year, I try to find out if it really was us. One lady told me that we killed her lawn last year, but she never told us that she was going to be gone for the summer, and when we did the applications in the heat of the summer and she never put water on the lawn in some of the worst draught conditions in years, she just assumed that we'd know that she wasn't there to water. For instance, in my branch alone, we still have around 2,000 customers that haven't responded yet.

Also, we do a summer bug campaign. Not because we're trying to sell people something they don't need, but because alot of people have bugs (sod webworms, grubs, etc.) and either don't know that the bugs can do damage or they don't know we offer the service.

After that, we do a campaign in the fall for aeration. Again, it's a service that alot of customers use, and also many of our customers simply don't understand the importance of aerating.

Are we a little pushy sometimes? Yes, we are. But that's simply because people are programmed to believe that we're just trying to make some money off them. Believe it or not, but we do this for a living, and chances are we know what we're talking about.

Some of you may think that the person that's calling you is out of state, but all the calls you get are from the branch that services you. The reason we do this is because there's no way someone from a different region can know what is best for your lawn. Granted, there are some benefits with going with a smaller company, but there are some disadvantages. Are they licensed? Do they have experience?

Sorry that this post is so long, but TruGreen has been a very good company to work for, and want to make sure that people know where we're coming from.

[hotrod1]

I had one of them big companies come out and give my lawn the free analysis a couple years ago. They came out around the end of winter when the snow was melting good and we had a big pond in the back yard from snow melt.

The guys walks around the yard measuring, goes to his truck and hands me the paperwork on recommendations and prices and i just about went into shock at the price...I told him I fertilize my yard for less then half of what he quoted me.

Then he said he recommended aerifying the yard...I asked him why and his reply was that there is a lot of compaction and thatch. I litterally laughed at him and asked if it could possibly be the ground is still frozen and how he knows that i had a thatch problem (i watched him the whole time he was on the yard)...he had no reply.

He then wantd to sell me herbicide treatments to control the weeds i had which he said i had clover and dandilions...I asked him to show me the weeds...He couldn't find any.

[fishuhalik]

There's a prime example of a bad salesman. I try my very best to be as honest and upfront with customers as possible. There's alot of reasons it's more expensive. Obviously, we have to pay for gas, the truck, the equipment, the technician, and all other overhead we have. It's a service, just like anything else. How much more do you have to pay a mechanic to fix your car as opposed to fixing it yourself? The reason people hire a service is because they're either tired of doing it themselves or they just can't figure it out themselves.