dupagelawnandsnow.com will be accepting new clients for the 2010 lawn mowing and snow removal season starting in March, 2010. Temporarily, dupagelawnandsnow.com is not accepting new clients. We appreciate your business!

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Many people ask themselves when they should do a fall clean up. Some people wait until all of the leafs are down on the yard while other people mulch the leafs on they’re yard little by little, week by week, and take care of their lawns that way.

In my experience, it is much better to work on the fall clean up every week or every other week than all at once. One reason for this is that if leafs pile up higher and higher, they are harder to work with. Additionally, it takes a whole lot more time to rake leafs, than to mulch leafs. When the debris is limited, it is often possible to use a mulching lawn mower and bag to get the debris off the yard. Therefore, this type of fall clean up can take about the same amount of time that it normally takes to mow the lawn.

In summary, the best way to do a lawn clean up is to do it weekly or bi-weekly (depending on the amount of debris fallen on the yard). By spacing the clean up over time, you can often reduce the amount of total hours needed to be spent on the clean up. Additionally, if you hire a lawn mowing service, you may consider asking them to continue coming one time per week or one time per every week during the fall to take care of the yard. Also, be sure to ask them if they can blow the leafs out of the flower beds, trees, and bushes each time they come. By doing this, especially if the service uses a bag, your lawn will look clean each week and their will be no giant accumulation of leafs to clean up in November. In summary, I hope you consider the benefits of cleaning up your lawn a little at a time vs. all at once.

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Over the last several years, there has been an increased interest in synthetic oils and synthetic oil blends and there use in lawn mowers. Some suggest that synthetic oil can better protect and engine because it does not break down as quickly as other oils.

In my opinion, synthetic oil is often unnecessary investment and one that is likely not to pay off. I say this because many lawn mower engines are designed to use regular oil. Additionally, synthetic can be twice as expensive and some manufacturers even claim that you can wait longer between oil changes if you use synthetic.

One problem if you do not change your oil frequently on your lawn mower, is that you may end up running the engine dangerously low on oil and doing damage. This is the case for many people how do not check their oil on a regular basis.

Tip: Check your oil before each time you use your mower to ensure that it has enough oil. If it doesn’t have enough oil, be sure to fill it to the amount needed. Additionally, if the mower is using a lot of oil that can be an indicator that it will either break or be in need of significant repair soon.

In summary, I recommend that you use whatever oil is recommended by the manufacturer and that you follow there advise in regards to oil. If they recommend standard oil for your engine, there may be no need for synthetic.

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In order to pick a great, Naperville, IL based Lawn Care Service, you should consider:

1. Experience
2. Equipment
3. References

A good lawn company will have all three of these things. In order to determine whether or not a company is experienced, you may consider asking, how long have you been in business? How many lawns do you mow? Is the owner present at each job? If the company has been in business over 5 years, mows 40 or more lawns (a sign that they do the business professionally and not as a weekend job), and the owner is present each time the service comes, chances are you will get a high quality job done on your lawn.

Another thing to be considered is the lawn maintenance equipment. Does the company use a string trimmer, leaf blower, and lawn mower each time they come? There are some companies that only do lawn mowing and do not trim the weeds or leaf blow the driveway each time they come. This is bad because the company will leave and your driveway and sidewalks will have debris all over them and your lawn will look like a mess. You will want to make sure that the company you hire will 1) mow 2) trim the grass & Weeds 3) and blow off your driveway each time they come.

Another good idea is to ask the company for references. When looking for a landscaping or lawn care company, you can ask if they have any customers you can call to talk about the service or see any of the jobs that they’ve done. A high quality company will have good references and a reputation for doing good work.

In summary, I hope this article helps you find a great lawn mowing company.

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1. Trim Your Bushes
2. Add Mulch
3. Fertilize Your Lawn
4. Hire a Professional Lawn Mowing Service

Trimming your bushes is a quick project that can be accomplished by most ambitious homeowners in several hours or less. If you haven’t trimmed your bushes for a while, you will be amazed at how big of a difference it can make to the appearance of your home by making it look better maintained and good looking.

Adding mulch can often be done for $400 or less (including mulch) and is certainly something that can dramatically increase the appearance, and therefor value of your home. In general Cyprus mulch is reccomended because Cyprus Mulch is generally fairly inexpensive, looks very attractive, and lasts longer than many other types of mulch.

Hiring a lawn fertilization service can also be a great way to increase the value of your home because they will be able to kill the weeds in your yard and promote green grass growth.  Oftn times, you can find a good lawn fertilization service for less than $400 per year and increase the value of your home by hiring the lawn fertilization service to make the lawn greener and with less weeds.

The main reason I reccomend professional lawn mowing services, is because they have expensive tools and knowledge to make your lawn look great.  If you are going to hire a lawn mowing service, I suggest that you try to find one that will mow your lawn, trim all of the weeds, blow off your driveway, and edge your sidewalks and curbs.  If you hire a landscaping servive that can do this, your lawn will look much better and the value of your home will be increased.

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This article discuss situations when and when not bagging your lawn is appropriate.  Often times,  if you purchase a good mulching lawn mower you will often to be able to cut without a bag.   If you use a mulching lawn mower, you will often be able to save time and money by not bagging. There are several exceptions, including:

1) when there are a lot of leafs, pods, or debris on the ground. These are often hard to mulch and mulching up pods without bagging, can often spread seeds and debris in the ground, that can cause unwanted plants to grow and mess
2. When the grass is unusually high. When grass is very high, say 12″ or 15″ tall, it can be very difficult to cut and will need to be bagged. If you have grass that is 12″ or 15″ tall, I would recommend that you call a lawn mowing service, and have them bag it. In general, commercial lawn mowers are better able to cut long grass

In general, mulching can be used when the grass is moderately short and when there is not a lot of debris on the yard. This is often the majority of the summer.  I hope that this article helps you to better decide whether or not you will need to bag your grass.

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1. It will make your lawn look greener and thus enhance the appearance of your lawn
2. It will help keep your grass from dying (and)
3. may save you money by keeping the grass that you have
4. the next time it will rain is unknown, so it is important to keep the grass well hydrated to maintain its health.
5. It only takes a few minutes to turn the sprinklers off and on.

One thing that you will want to be careful to do is to fully soak the grass each time you water it. Many experts believe that it is better to water twice as long two times per week, than half as long, four times per week. If you are going to water you grass, I suggest that you let the sprinklers run for a while. This is especially important in August and September 2009 as there has not been much rain in the Downers Grove or Naperville area recently.

One other thing that must be considered is the local watering ordiances that prohibit watering on certain days.  For certain areas, water can only be done on select days at select times.  You will want to check your local governements website in order to find out when you can water.

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Roughly speaking, one yard of mulch covers 100 square feet of area, 3″ thick.  This means that if you have a 10X10 area and want to cover the mulch 3″ deep, then you will need to purchase 1 yard of mulch.  Additionally, if you have an area that is 20X10, you will need 2 yards of mulch.  Often time with yard the measurments get a little bit more involved.  For example, you may have an area of your lawn that is 8X8 (64 square feet), another that is 12X10 (120 square feet), and another that is 4X3 (12 square feet0).  If this is the case, you add (64+120+12) which equals 196, divide the number by 100 because their are 100 square feet of mulch per yard, and then you will know that you need to by 1.96 yard of mulch.  In those instances, I tend to round up and purchase two yards of mulch.  One of the benefits of laying mulch 3″ thick, vs. 2″ thick, or 1″ thick is that it lasts much longer.  Often times, laying mulch 3″ thick can last several seasons, whereas laying it much thinner may only last one season, or sometimes even less.  Additionally, when mulch is put down thin, it often looks lousy because you weeds easily grow through it and you can often see the dirt underneath the grass.  I hope that this article was informative and that it helps you to better estimate how much mulch you need to put down.

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