I had a bad experience with Agronomic Lawn Management of Virginia Beach and would not recommend this company.
My husband and I had mostly done our own seeding and fertilizing over our 34 years of owning this home--with periodic one or two year contracts with lawn care companies. The two companies we had used did a pretty good job, although the lawn would re-grow some weeds soon after a service contract ran out. With or without a lawn company, our lawn always looked at least average --and sometimes much better than average.
My husband developed some cardiac issues, and I decided that we again could use some help with lawn maintenance. I had heard ALM advertisements and infomercials on the radio. ALM presented itself as a company that used a scientific approach to lawn management. (They require lawn soil testing at the start of the program, claim education in this field so they can pick the right treatments, etc).
ALM of Virginia Beach's advertisements stated that they grow relationships--as well as lawns. (They did not state whether these were good relationships!)
Since there had been some increased encroachment of weeds over the years, we followed their advice of having them kill much of the lawn, and we paid for this treatment and their reseeding program (not cheap.) We conscientiously watered the new lawn according to their instructions. We purchased our own seeds to fill in spots ALM missed --and we had a nice lawn.
We paid ALM for over a year of lawn maintenance. Right after one of ALM's lawn treatments, our lawn began to die. My husband, some neighbors, and my lawn cutting service company confirmed that it looked like chemical burn. I called the company right away. Without seeing the lawn, they theorized that it could be a brown fungus. The lawn looked the worst it had ever looked in the 34 years we lived in this house and a number of my neighbors (more than 6) stopped by to comment on the lawn.
Although I had called ALM right away, I did not set up an immediate appointment due to family and friend's medical issues and due to having houseguests. When ALM did send out one of their employees a few weeks later, he stated that it could be due to brown mold or fungus common in this area. He mentioned that they could do a brown fungus treatment for an additional charge of approx $55.
I stated I did not agree that the problem was a non-related fungus for the following reasons:
a. the grass started dying immediately after the last treatment
b. I have a contiguous lawn with a neighbor and there was a straight line where ALM had stopped fertilizing/ weed treatment, and that delineated my dead grass from my neighbor's live lawn
c. the damage was worst in sunny areas. If it were due to mold, the areas that were shaded and damp would be worse; these areas were better.
d. I had never had a problem with mold or fungus in all the 34 years that I lived here
e. No neighbor in my vicinity had anything close to our dead grass problem. In fact, I saw no lawn in my neighborhood--with or without lawn maintenance contracts-- which had any substantial areas of newly dead grass
The employee stated the treatment could have made some contribution to the conditions which caused the lawn to die (acidity?), and suggested I set up an appointment with one of the ALM managers.
I did call right after this visit, but my message got mislaid so I called again. I made an appointment with Brian. By this time, most of my grass was dead. Brian said that the treatment had nothing to do with the condition of my lawn and it was coincidental that the lawn had died from a fungus.
As previously stated, there was a straight line where they had stopped fertilizing and on the other side of that line, the grass was alive.
He said that the reason my neighbors' lawn was not dead was that they likely had a different grass. In fact, ALM that picked my seed grass, so if there was a problem of the type of seed used, it should be their responsibility. Anyway, ALM had accidentally treated into my neighbor's yard by a few feet. Those few feet of lawn were also dead--minimizing the chances that the difference in our lawns was due to a different type of grass seed.
ALM had picked the grass seed, had picked the chemicals, and had done all the spraying. Since ALM claimed to approach lawn management scientifically, ALM's refusal to do any restorative maintenance (i.e. reseeding, soil treatment, acidity remediation, etc) to treat our disastrous lawn was unfair. We had paid over $700 to have the worst lawn we have ever had!
Shortly after the lawn died, violet grass sprung up all over my lawn. It has taken hours of toil for my husband and me to clear space to put down new grass seed. Ironically I had chosen to employ this company due to my husband's health issues. Their poor attitude and treatment of our lawn has caused us much aggravation. I call this company "Aggravation Lawn Management." read more