More winter boredom has set in so I'm running numbers on lawn care for next year. Here's what I've come up with.

2022 Lawn Care Cost 5000sq feet
Granular Fert $60.00
Scotts GrubEx applied Early-Mid April at twice the bag rate $30.00

Everything else below I spray for the most part: Keeps my cost per 1000 way down.

Pre emergent:

Simazine/Prodiamine/isoxaben
Isoxaben $40.00 Yearly Cost
Prodiamine $4.00 Yearly Cost
Simazine $1.25 Yearly Cost

Fungicides

Scotts Disease EX. (this I still apply as granular as I just haven’t bought the liquid form yet)

Approx 3 applications a year $15.00 per app $45.00yr cost

Clearys 3336 $52.00 Yearly cost 3 apps per year

Eagle 20w $50.00 yearly cost 3 apps per year

Insecticides:

Not going to bother to itemize these as there are so many different kinds you can go with. For what I use my yearly cost is about $35.00

Post Emergent:

Not going to bother to itemize these either. There are a ton of them and I don’t use a lot and they are cheap. Yearly cost is $22.75 and that number is high.

Optional Products:

Iron/Micronutrients

Feature: $60 a year applied at 2oz per 1000 twice a week.

Elemental sulfur apps, growth regulators, misc products. $100 on the high side

Yearly cost. $500.00

So about $40.00 a month cost.

Notes: $500 a year is a little pricey. Though I am a bit more extreme than most. I could easily cut our Isoxaben, fudge on my fungicides, make some other adjustments to save cost. But at the end of the day I’m doing more than a service like Tru Green would do at a cheaper price.

Derek if you get bored how about making a full schedule of what to put out and when

I'll work up a basic North TX program today.

How bout Central Texas there Buddy?

This will cover the I-35 and I-45 corridor. Soils Dallas to San Antonio to Houston aren't that far off. East TX is where things start to change. Central TX might have more potassium, Houston might have more phosphorus. Without a soil test I'm not going to recommend a Phosphorus fert. Nitrogen is a give and Potassium is consumed pretty quickly as well during the growing season so we will go with those. .

Basic program. And I will take this 2 directions. This is going to be without getting a soil test done we’re going to go with just a high nitrogen fert like Scotts Southern Turf Builder.

Pre Emergent.

February 1st-15th. And August 15th-30th. Apply Lesco Stonewall, sold at Lowes at 3lbs per 1000sq feet. Water in well.

Elemental Sulfur. Helps fight your high soil Ph for nutrient uptake.

May 1st and August 1st. Apply 5lbs per 1000sq feet water in well. There are 2 brands. Martin sold at Lowes and Tiger 90 sold at Tractor Supply

Mid April apply Scotts GrubEX. This will do a couple things. It will not kill the grubs currently in the ground. It will kill the new grubs that hatch on the soil and try to enter into the ground. And if we get a Armyworm outbreak like we did this year it will control them too.

Fertilizer:

This is where I go off the rails a bit and the one time I don’t follow the label recommendations. And this is where I will go a couple different directions.

I prefer to apply more applications at lower amounts. Bermuda I’m going to target 0.5lbs of Nitrogen a month. St. Aug I’m going to go at 0.3lbs per month. +/-

So the Scotts Southern Turf Builder 32-0-10

First weekend of every month from April-October

Bermuda 2lbs per 1000
St. Aug 1lb per 1000

You will get a good 4 week response at those rates. If you're needing to push growth to fill in some bare spots you can increase those rates a bit.

Route 2. Holiday schedule. This is where I would follow the Scotts lable rate. The Scotts label rate is going to put down 0.9lbs of Nitrogen with 10% of it being slow release.

Easter
Memorial Day
July 4th
Labor day

The holiday schedule is what I have my boss on with the Scotts Southern as he wants to do the least amount of apps possible and he gets great results.

^^^

HR I would highly suggest you and anyone that reads this wanting to do their own lawn care that want better than expected results to get a soil test in February. Yes you can get great results running Scotts Southern. I'm a fan of that product. But your test will really dial it in for you. Maybe you're low on Phosphorus and need to use a 1-1-1 or high on it and good on potassium too and you need to run a 21-0-0 nitrogen only product. Good example is Greenen here. He's in the Waco area. His soil test was pretty good as far a central TX goes. Great potassium numbers, lower Phos numbers. He likes Milorganite which is a 6-4-0. That product probably works ok for him. That's what he needs, N and P. Though the release rates of Milor are unstable. Better option would be map/dap.But we won't get into that for now.

Anyway. My soil is low on P and K. So a 1-1-1 like a triple 13-13-13 is a great option for me. Next year I'm going with a 3-1-2. Middle number Phos doesn't move through the soil near as quickly as the N and K(the first and last number) I'll get a soil test done but I feel I've applied enough P this year I can easily maintain with a 3-1-2. Which would be like a 15-5-10 fert. Easy to find.

All this rambling on. Get a soil test and it will tell you what you need. Cheap and effective. I can walk anyone through the soil test process. Easy peasy.

Don't forget us West Texas folks too.

Do they have grass out there?

A few strands here and there

Fort Worth is about as far west as I've seen a soil test. Doesn't seem west of there people seem to care about growing grass lol. Let me do some research and see what I can find.

Good stuff Derek, thank you.

I don't see anything online for your area. I would really like to see your soil test. If you want to use your local ext office that's fine. They will probably send it to A&M. I prefer Waypoint's testing methods better. Will cost you about $25.00. I believe you've only put out Ammonium Sulfate the past 3 weeks or so? If so you can get a soil test done now. If anyone else has put down any 32-0-10 or a 13-13-13 or similar in the last 30-45 days I'd wait another 3-4 weeks to let those work through the soil before you get a test.

Simple process. I only take samples from my front yard, no samples out of the flowerbed. Lawn only. I take about 10 samples in the zigzag manor like I link below. Use a clean shovel and bucket. I wear disposable rubber gloves just incase there are some type of contaminates on my hand. Take your samples from about 4" deeps. If you download the Waypoint app they will upload your results to the app 24-48 hours after receiving your sample. Print our this form and mail it with your soil. They will call you once they get it for CC payment. You want to do the SW1 test and just use the code for your grass type. Here is a sample form. Just mail it to the Memphis address on the form.

https://www.waypointanalytical.com/...udesSWandSCpackagesWestern-Tennessee.pdf

https://www.waypointanalytical.com/...t-AF1SoilSamplingforHomeLawnsGardens.pdf

How about you come out here. I'll have a few cases of Naddy Light and some ribeyes ready.

Would you be willing to do McRibs instead of ribeyes?