Lawn Care vs Lawn Maintenance: What’s the Difference?

Having a neat, lush lawn is not always as easy as it seems.

After all, a great-looking lawn requires a lot of care on a regular basis.

The thing is that regular care includes both basic lawn care and regular maintenance, but if you’re not sure what makes these two different, you’re not alone.

While lawn care and lawn maintenance sound like the same thing, they are really very different.

That being said, they are both equally important if your goal is to have a beautiful lawn all year long.

When it comes to lawn care vs. lawn maintenance, the main difference lies in the tasks associated with each job. Lawn care involves tasks to improve the overall health of the lawn, such as testing the soil, pest control, and others. Lawn maintenance, on the other hand, involves tasks such as trimming and edging, mowing the grass, and anything else required to keep the lawn looking its best.

Fortunately, a good lawn-care company will take care of both of these jobs so that your lawn looks great 12 months out of the year.

Basic Lawn Care Services

If you have a lawn that has never been serviced before or one you’ve simply ignored for a while, you’ll need someone to take care of it, and this is what’s involved in the lawn-care services that a good lawn-care company provides.

These companies are interested in the health of your soil and turf; therefore, their tasks include weed control, disease management, and basic fertilization of the soil, to name a few.

When the right company takes good care of your lawn, it will both look great and be healthy, not to mention disease- and drought-resistant.

Some of the many services that a good lawn-care company offers for basic lawn care include:

Basic pest control
Pruning of trees and shrubs
Installation of irrigation systems
Application of fertilizer
Pre- and post-emergent crabgrass and weed control
Root developers and stimulants
Aeration and thatch control
Control of bugs and grubs
Organic lawn care
Soil testing
Mulching

As you can tell by looking at this list, few of these are tasks that the average person enjoys doing or even thinks about doing, which is why a good lawn-care company is so important.

Regular lawn care requires not only a lot of time but also a concerted effort to make sure that everything that needs to be done is indeed done.

Think of it this way. If your lawn isn’t properly cared for when it needs basic care, the maintenance won’t do you any good.

Lawn care is necessary to get the lawn in good condition and for it to look good.

By contrast, lawn maintenance includes tasks to keep the lawn looking its best after it’s already received the care it needs.

That is the main difference between lawn care and lawn maintenance.

Tools You Need

Even if you choose a professional lawn-care company to take care of your lawn, there will occasionally be times in between their visits that you may have to perform some of these lawn-care tasks yourself.

Because of this, you may want to consider having a few tools on hand so that you can accommodate these tasks whenever necessary.

For starters, here are the tools you’ll need for basic lawn-care services:

Lawn mower (cutting the grass)
Lawn trimmer or edger (cleaning up edges and borders)
Leaf rake and soil rake
Hose with a spray nozzle for watering flowers, trees, and bushes
Hand pruner to remove branches and shape flowers and shrubs
Shear to clean up and shape your hedges
Spreader for adding fertilizer to your lawn

You Might Consider: While you might not have to use these tools very often, it’s good to have them around in case you need to take care of your yard in between visits from the lawn-care company.

Lawn Maintenance Services

Once again, when you want your lawn to remain looking good, you need lawn-maintenance services.

Making sure that your property stays clean and well manicured takes basic maintenance, and some of the tasks included in these maintenance services are:

Pruning of shrubs and trees
Mowing of the lawn
Edging or trimming your driveways, walkways, and patio or deck areas
Regular removal of weeds
Cleanup of the yard in the spring and fall
Regular watering of the lawn, flowers, etc.

In the spring and fall especially, you’ll need your lawn cleaned of debris and leaves, and you’ll need to prepare the lawn for the next season, especially when you change from cold to warm weather or vice versa.

This is what lawn maintenance does; it keeps the lawn looking good but also prepares it for anything else you’d like to do with it, such as keeping it mowed and preparing to plant new flowers or shrubs.

What About Landscaping?

In addition to lawn care and lawn maintenance, some people assume that landscaping is similar to the first two.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. Let’s look at a brief definition of what landscaping is and how it relates to both lawn care and lawn maintenance.

Landscaping is the design and installation of new greenery and structures to make your yard look amazing.

Landscaping services are divided into two types:

Hard landscaping, which includes walkways, pathways, patios and decks, outdoor barbecue areas, and fancy items such as waterfalls and small ponds

Soft landscaping, which includes grass, shrubs, trees, flowers, etc.

Most customers choose both hard and soft landscaping for their yards, and once everything is installed and the yard looks the way they want it to look, then comes the lawn-care and lawn-maintenance visits.

In other words, after the initial landscaping services, lawns will need both care and maintenance from that point forward.

Best Case Scenario: Utilizing all three of these services is the best way to have a lush, thick, green lawn that you’ll love showing off to others.

Why Choose Regular Lawn Care and Maintenance?

And in case you’re wondering why you should care about regular lawn care and maintenance, the answer is simple. To get a lawn that both looks good and is healthy takes a lot of work, and the work has to be consistent.

The advantages of hiring a professional lawn-care company rather than doing the work yourself are plentiful, but here are a few of the best reasons to do so:

You can save money. In the long run, most people find that it’s cheaper to pay someone to do the work rather than doing the work themselves.

Your yard won’t suffer as many damages. The pros will make sure that no limbs or branches rot, your yard isn’t under- or over-watered, and your grass isn’t cut too short, among other things.

Your home’s value is likely to rise. A great-looking lawn not only helps you sell your home faster but also gives it a little more value in the end.

You get consistent care. If you take care of the lawn yourself, it’s likely that you’ll forget something at some point or just won’t do what you need to do to keep the lawn looking good.

It is easier on your body. The experts have the right tools to take good care of your lawn without their back hurting or suffering any pulled muscles. You can’t always say the same thing when you take care of your lawn yourself.