Affordable yard maintenance? (Cedar Park: live in, costs, suburban)

[audrey2]

H! I was hoping someone could recommend a reliable service for maintaining our yard? We live on a small lot and only have grass in the front. We have quite a few cedar trees, gravel in the back, and potted plants for decoration in the front and back. So most of the work would require keeping the leaves raked and swept, watering, mowing occasionally, and picking up other sticks and debris. Pretty low maintenance. In the past we have always used a local company with a great price but poor communication and reliability, unfortunately. So we will likely be discontinuing business with them. We're looking for another company with comparable pricing (our previous company charged us only $60 per visit with 10 visits per year). Note that we used this other company at another residence we just moved from. our old house's yard was also low maintenance but was more maintenance than our new yard that I described above. So we're hoping to find someone who will charge us even less per visit than $60. Any recommendations?

[XLadylawX]

The going rate seems to be $35 per visit for the average suburban yard. $60 seems really high to me.

[janejanejanejanejane]

Originally Posted by XLadylawX

The going rate seems to be $35 per visit for the average suburban yard. $60 seems really high to me.

ditto

[tazbigdog]

Where are you located at?

[Trainwreck20]

$35-$45 (depending on lot size,edges, etc) seems to be typical for most small operators and usually includes mow/edge/blow and not much else. From our experience, the small operators can also be the most variable - both from operator to operator and from visit to visit. Very frustrating. I am sure there are some good ones out there, but you will have to work to find them and you may find they charge a bit more for the reliability/quality. We went through several (four or five) before giving up.

For years we went with a large operator and paid about $1,200 per year (on an annual contract) which included mowing, blowing, leaf bagging (in season), trimming, weeding, edging, trimming, fertilizing, and treatment for disease (brown patch, cinch bugs, typically) and fire ants (as necessary). They came year-round, with more visits in the summer (weekly) and fewer in the winter (down to a minimum of once in December and maybe another month or two).

We also have a large corner lot with sidewalk and quite a few bushes to trim, so I am sure that added a bit to the cost.

I any case, we recently discontinued the service after about five years, I guess, and have gone back to doing it ourselves. Our kids are older and we can afford the time a bit better.

[Idlewile]

I assume that $35-$45 range is just for one yard, i.e., just the front?

[Austin97]

Originally Posted by Idlewile

I assume that $35-$45 range is just for one yard, i.e., just the front?

No, we get our yard done (about .22 acre) for $30/visit. This is mowing and edging only, front and back yard. We have them do weed pulling and trimming on an as needed basis (usually only twice a year) and that costs about $70 ( which is insanely inexpensive).

They dont do any fertilization,treatment for disease or fireant killing. But that is really easy to do so I do that part myself.

[audrey2]

We live in Cedar Park. Around 30ish would be much more reasonable for us. I would expect it to be hit or miss though. Several of you mentioned that you use someone in that range. I'm hoping you can share some names/companies you'd recommend so that we can contact them? Thanks for the responses!