Chicago collar counties · eco-only · DIY
Buy your September fertilizer in May.
Photo-identify your grass and weeds. Get a dated plan built for zone 5b. Every product on it is watched at six stores so you buy when it is cheap, not when you need it. And see exactly what the truck was costing you.
1 lawns on a plan30 prices observedNo account. No spraying the whole yard.
Price watch
Turf-type tall fescue blend, 20 lb
$35.97
at Home Depot
The Home DepotLowe'sAce HardwareWalmart
What the truck costs
A 5,000 sq ft lawn with a mowing crew and a six-round weed-and-feed program runs
$0 to $0
a year in the collar counties.
Doing it yourself, eco-only
$665 to $849
That is roughly $921 to $1,704 back, for about 27 to 33 hours of your year. Mostly mowing.
How it works
- 1PhotoPoint your phone at a patch of grass or a weed. We tell you what it is and the eco fix, with a straight answer about how hard it is.
- 2PlanA dated calendar for zone 5b: corn gluten when the forsythia blooms, aerate and overseed Labor Day week, winterizer at Halloween. Sized to your square footage.
- 3PickupEvery product on the plan is price-watched at Home Depot, Lowe's, Menards, Ace, Walmart, and Amazon. We email you the morning it drops, with the store that has it.
On sale this week
Below the usual price right now
Tracking has just started. The first drops show up here once a few nights of prices are in. Meanwhile, the full product list shows typical prices.
What the trucks spray
Same lawn, without the chemistry
Late March to April
Round 1: spring pre-emergent plus fertilizer
Prodiamine, dithiopyr, or pendimethalin, blended on a fast-release urea fertilizer
Instead
Corn gluten meal at 20 lb per 1,000 sq ft when forsythia blooms.
May and again in September
Rounds 2 and 4: broadleaf weed control blanket spray
2,4-D + dicamba + MCPP (a 'three-way'), sometimes with carfentrazone or triclopyr added
Instead
Pull dandelions and plantain with a stand-up weeder.
June to July
Round 3: summer fertilizer, often with grub control
Synthetic urea fertilizer, sometimes chlorantraniliprole (grub preventer) or imidacloprid
Instead
No summer feeding at all.
September and late October
Rounds 5 and 6: fall and winterizer fertilizer
Synthetic urea, high nitrogen, sometimes with potassium
Instead
Milorganite at the bag rate on Labor Day and again at Halloween.
Weed guide
The twenty weeds that show up in collar-county lawns
Crabgrass
easyThe summer invader. Sprouts from seed once soil hits 55 F, sprawls flat in a star shape, and dies at first frost leaving a bare spot that reseeds itself.
Dandelion
easyDeep taproot, yellow flower, puffball seed head. The easiest weed to fix by hand and the one most people spray for.
White clover
mediumThree-leaf patches with white flowers that bees love. It fixes nitrogen from the air, which is why it shows up in hungry lawns. Many eco lawns keep it on purpose.
Creeping Charlie (ground ivy)
hardThe hardest lawn weed in the Midwest. Square stems, scalloped round leaves, purple flowers in April, and it roots at every node so one plant becomes a mat.
Broadleaf plantain
easyOval leaves in a flat rosette with a tall skinny seed spike. The signature weed of compacted soil along paths and play areas.
Buckhorn plantain
easyThe narrow-leaf cousin of broadleaf plantain, with a cone-shaped seed head on a wiry stalk that pops right back up after mowing.
Yellow nutsedge
hardNot a grass. Lighter green, grows faster than the lawn, triangular stem, and it stores food in underground tubers (nutlets) that survive almost anything.
Common chickweed
easyA low, bright-green mat with tiny white star flowers that shows up in March and dies in June heat. Shallow roots, pulls up like a rug.