Lawn Care and Maintenance: DIY and Service Choices

In this expanded guide: Lawn tasks to plan through the year · Choosing a lawn service in the UK · Choosing a lawn service in the USA.

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.

Some of the Main Differences

When it comes to lawn care vs. landscaping, there are some key differences, even though both of them involve making your lawn look amazing.

Think of basic lawn care as routine maintenance because it involves a lot of basic tasks such as:

edging and trimming
mowing or cutting the lawn
removing weeds
applying new grass or fertilizer, and a few others

With landscaping, the workers are starting from scratch and transforming an area from something ordinary to something extraordinary.

Lawn tasks to plan through the year

Doing Your Own Lawn Care: Pros and Cons

As you can imagine, there are both advantages and disadvantages of taking care of your lawn on your own.

Let’s take a look at some of them now.

Pros

It is great exercise. Many people love doing their own lawns because it gives them the chance to enjoy some fresh air and exercise. This is something that many people consider very important.

It gives you a sense of pride. Turning your long, messy grass into something that you’ll want to show off to others instills pride in the homeowner that simply can’t be taken away.

It saves you money. While this shouldn’t be your only consideration, it is still an important factor, especially if your budget is tight.

It can result in a more personalized lawn. When you take care of your lawn yourself, you can make it look exactly like you want in the end. You can’t always get that with a professional lawn-care company.

Cons

It is time-consuming. When trying to decide between doing your lawn yourself and hiring a pro, you have to consider what your time is worth because doing the lawn certainly takes a lot of time.

It doesn’t always produce the results you wanted. In the end, DIY enthusiasts often get mediocre results or worse, making them feel as if they did all that work for nothing.

It often comes with hidden costs. Once you start taking care of your lawn, you may find that you need extra materials and tools, which can quickly add to the cost of doing this job yourself.

It is not always cost-effective. While it can save you money when you take care of your lawn yourself, that is not always the case. Sometimes, it just isn’t worth it financially to forgo hiring a professional.

Hiring a Professional Lawn Care Company: Pros and Cons

Just as doing the work yourself has pros and cons, so does hiring a professional to do the work instead.

Here are some of the things that you should consider.

Pros

It is more convenient. Let’s face it; not having to worry about the lawn getting done every week is ridiculously convenient, especially because we’re all so busy these days.

Cons

It is more expensive. This is one consideration that’s important to remember because professional lawn-care companies are not cheap.

It can result in a bad-looking lawn if you choose the wrong company. Not all lawn-care companies are the same, so some research on each company is a must.

Choosing a lawn service in the UK

UK service examples and quotation checks

GreenThumb is a UK lawn-treatment provider example, not a promise of availability in every postcode. Ask the local branch exactly which treatments, visits, mowing or repairs are included, who applies products, how pets and children are protected, and what cancellation terms apply. Compare a written site-specific quote with the DIY work you can realistically maintain.

Sources checked 27 October 2026: GreenThumb UK.

How Do You Choose the Best Lawn Care Service near You?

It doesn’t matter how you have found a lawn care specialist, we do not recommend that you just head to the first company that you see.

You will need to think a little bit about whether they are the right company for you.

Here are a few of the things that we think about when looking for a lawn care service.

What Are the Company's Credentials?

When you are looking at the website of a quality lawn care specialist:

They should list their credentials

They should tell you which professional associations they are members of.

They should tell you about the qualifications that they hold.

Once you have this information, you can carry out your research.

You can determine whether their credentials are reputable. You can work out whether any training courses they have completed are well-regarded.

Yes. This is going to require a little bit of effort. Your lawn is worth it.

Do They Offer the Lawn Care Service That You Want?

As we said before, there are a lot of lawn care services that can be offered.

If you head to the site of a lawn care service, then you will want to have a look at their services. Each company will offer something slightly different.

One of the main things to think about here will be the type of nutrients the lawn care service company is going to be using on your lawn.

What are Their Online Reviews Like?

People love to review companies that they have worked with.

This means that you shouldn’t just look at the overall rating when trying to work out what the best lawn care service near you is:

You will actually want to read through whatever those reviews saw and see if it is a situation that is likely to happen to you.

You will want to read to see whether the lawn care service has responded to any of these reviews.

See how they deal with the complaints. You really, really don’t want to be working with a lawn care company that doesn’t deal with complaints.

How Much Experience Do They Have?

We recommend that you look for a lawn care service that has been in business for a good few years.

Are They Located In Your Area?

You will want to check to ensure that the lawn care service company is really located within the same area as you.

This helps them to have a bit of knowledge about the local soil type. This can help make the lawn care a little bit easier.

What Is Their Availability?

If a lawn care company is struggling to fit you into their schedule, then they may not be the company for you.

How Much Does Their Service Cost?

Make sure that you compare the prices of multiple lawn care companies.

This will give you an average price.

Lawn care is going to be cheaper than you may think, but it certainly isn’t going to be the cheapest thing in the world. It requires a lot of work.

Meet the Lawn Care Specialist

Before you hire anybody, meet with the lawn care specialist.

Discuss your lawn with them. Discover more about their services.

You can learn a lot from meeting a specialist. You will get an idea about how receptive they are to your needs.

From Experience: You will get a feel for how easy they are to talk to. Both are important. You don’t want a lawn care specialist that isn’t great at speaking and loves to do things their way.

Choosing a lawn service in the USA

USA service examples and quotation checks

TruGreen is a US lawn-care provider example; check local coverage and the specific plan rather than assuming mowing or all maintenance is included. Ask about application licensing, product labels, exclusions, visit frequency, renewal and cancellation terms. Compare an itemised quote with local independent providers and the tasks you intend to do yourself.

Sources checked 27 October 2026: TruGreen US.

While the nationwide providers may have some more affordable rates, sometimes local companies can be a more beneficial way to go.

Golden Rule: Always consider the services you need and never over-pay for the ones that you don’t.

Services to Consider

While many lawn care companies provide a wide array of services, some specialize in one specific area; this can benefit the customer if they are only looking for a particular job to be done.

Here are a few areas where specific expertise can come in handy: