Asking a bunch of lawn wackos whether you should hire somebody to take care of your lawn is probably not going to get a lot of endorsements for the lawn service. I used a lawn service for the first year I owned my house and my thinking was much along the same lines as yours. I'd get a professional service to get rid of the weeds and get my grass healthy and after that, I'd be able to do it on my own. I think they said that they used a specific set of chemicals that they sprayed that was tailored to my lawn and its needs, but the truck that they brought around had a big tank on it and they used the same tank on every lawn. When they would come by, they'd leave a notice on the door with recommendations for how often to cut, water, etc based on the conditions they noted in my lawn. But it was the same every time, regardless of the temperature, rainfall, etc. To top it off, the weed situation was no better than before and may have even gotten worse. I also wasn't really comfortable with the little flags they'd put out telling me to keep children and pets off the lawn for a minimum of X days because of the treatments. So I took matters into my own hands. I read things from the extension offices and started doing things that are pretty close to what gets recommended around here. Things started improving. Then I found various lawncare forums and things got even better. One humorous (or maddening?) thing happened a few years after I stopped using the lawn care service. A sprinkler head broke and a section of the lawn went dormant because it wasn't getting any water (the only water lawns get here is from sprinklers). One of the lawncare services pulled up and told me that I had a serious grub problem and needed to treat it right away. They went out to the area that was dormant and started pulling up sections of grass and telling me that it was due to grubs. I knew it was because of lack of water and suggested that as the cause, and they started launching into an explanation of why they knew that wasn't it. I then turned on the sprinkler in that section and showed them that it wasn't working, but they still tried to tell me it was grubs. Anyway, the main things you want to do are the following: Water deeply and infrequently. Apply an inch of water a week, but only water once a week if you can (in the desert, I often have to water twice a week, or once every 5 days, anyway). Adjust the amount (or the frequency) you water for any rainfall. This has a couple of benefits. First, it promotes deep roots, so the grass can better deal with periods of drought. I call grass a lazy plant, because it will only put down roots as deeply as it needs to for the water it gets. If the top inch of soil is always wet, the grass will have roots that are only an inch deep. Second, letting the ground dry between waterings will discourage weed seeds from germinating, because they need moisture to germinate. Mulch mow and mow at the highest setting of your mower and never cut more than 1/3 of the blade at one time. Mulch mowing returns water and nutrients to the soil and improves the health of the soil. It doesn't contribute to thatch and can actually contribute to getting rid of it. Mowing at the highest setting helps to make the grass stronger because it gives more surface area for photosynthesis. It also helps shade the surface so the roots are better able to deal with heat and drought. Also, it helps keep weeds from thriving because the weeds need sunlight. Fertilize once in the spring and twice in the fall. If you're using weed killers, don't use the weed and feed products (another reason I don't like the services--the one size fits all means they fertilize and kill weeds at the same time). Instead, spot spray weeds that you see sprout up. As for the lime, did they do a soil test? If not, there's no way to know whether lime is needed. Some areas tend to have low pH soils, but you don't know what the prior owner did. The prior owner may have applied lime regularly and heavily and raised the pH too high. If so, I wouldn't do anything to lower the pH because that will happen anyway, but you need to know if it needs lime before adding it. I guess my comment on the grubs is similar. Do you have grubs? If not, the grub treatment makes a lot more sense for the lawn service than it does for you.

At $500-600, you can choose from some nice Snappers, Toros, Hondas, Ariens, Lawnboys, and probably some others I'm not thinking of right now. Gasoline shouldn't be very messy with a decent fuel container. But as for noise, I would reiterate my recommendation to get an OHV engine. It's possible that a Honda or Kawasaki engine would be quieter than the Briggs and Stratton Intek and Dove (OHV) engines, although I'm not totally sure about that. Self-propelled mowers have transmissions that take power form the engine to move the mower, so you don't have to push the mower at all. IMO, it's a huge benefit if it works well. In this price range, the drive systems do work well. Electric start is a fancy add-on to some engines, whereas most are just started with a pull cord. IMO, this is not terribly useful unless you have physical limitations that make pulling the starter cord difficult. Otherwise, they add weight and complexity that is not needed. As for sharpening blades, if you have a grinder or Dremel tool you can sharpen them yourself easily enough. Otherwise, a dealer can do it while you wait if you take him the blade and should charge a very small amount. Which is a good segue to a very important point: dealership support. At this price point, you can stay away from the big-box stores and buy from a real mower dealer. This brings with it good after-sales support. But it also gives you the chance to find out much more before the purchase, so you can make the correct purchase the first time. At a dealer, you can put your hands on these mowers and hopefully even start one up and try it. You will learn first-hand what the various self-propel systems feel like, and how hard it is to pull-start the engines, and how loud the various engines are. For someone who is still learning the basics, this kind of service is invaluable. I can't stress this enough. I don't know about that Craftsman mower you mention. If it's been sitting a long time, it will likely be hard or impossible to start unless you clean out the carburetor. And it certainly won't be the quality of mower you will be able to buy in your price range. So I guess I'm saying that if you try to use it, don't let it form your opinion of what all gas mowers are like. There are true, real differences between budget mowers and good mowers. I'd venture to say that some people with aversions to mowing could be cured just by having good mowers! Good luck in your search. Feel free to keep posting questions here, and keep us posted.

Thank you for the pictures. That helps. You are not all that bad off but I can understand your concern. It looks like your turf is a mix of grasses and some of them have been affected by something (disease or insects). That's why you get a mix of grasses for times like this. Do you know what mix of grasses you have? Put out some cat food or tuna cans in various places in the yard. Turn on the sprinklers and time how long it takes to fill the slowest can. Then use that as a starting point for your watering. Does your soil dry out completely between your two waterings? I'm thinking with those temps it does not. The issue with watering too frequently is that any weed seeds in the lawn will get enough water for a long enough period to germinate. The way you water less frequently is to water long enough to get 1 inch all at one time with no runoff. Are you mowing at the mower's highest setting? It looks like you are mowing at 2 inches or less. For almost all cool season grasses you will get a better looking color when you mow it high. There are several reasons for this that I won't get into. If you want to fertilize this summer, you can use organic fertilizer with no fear of burning even if the temps get up there. Organic fertilizers range in price from FREE (Starbucks gives away bags of used coffee grounds), inexpensive (any feed store will sell ground up stuff (corn, soy, wheat, alfalfa or something), or expensive (commercially bagged organic fertilizer). They all get applied at a rate of 10-20 pounds per 1,000 square feet. If you make a mistake and apply at 40-60, or even 100 pounds per 1,000, it won't hurt the grass but it might smell a little sour as the protein decomposes. I would stay away from synthetic fertilizer until Labor Day. Water and mulch-mow weekly. If you want to fertilize during the summmer, use organics as much as you want.

I had to read this a couple of times to understand it. It's pretty wild - Scotts apparently forged registration numbers for products that had not been approved by the EPA. What is even stranger is that consumers are advised to hold onto these products until testing is complete and the registrations are granted. It certainly doesn't sound like Scotts is being penalized for their actions.