Common sense tells you that hiring a lawn care company will cost more money than taking care of the job yourself. However, when you scrutinize the real costs involved with DIY lawn care,  you may find that you actually save money by turning the work over to professionals. When you add up costly mistakes, time, tools, equipment maintenance, and safety concerns, you'll see that using a professional lawn service makes a lot of sense. Here are three ways that DIY lawn care can cost more.

1. Lack of Knowledge

Your home's lawn is a living part of the natural environment, but unlike native flora, it requires some know-how to keep it looking its best. Just as a doctor has the training and experience to diagnose human health problems, a state-certified lawn technician can accurately identify and diagnose problems in your lawn. Professional lawn experts know how to ask and answer the following questions:

• Does your soil provide optimal grow conditions?
• Is your lawn afflicted with common lawn diseases?
• Are weeds affecting the health of your lawn?
• Are surface insects feasting on your lawn?
• Are underground grubs eating away at your lawn's root system?

A common DIY response to a sickly lawn is to throw down some fertilizer, but this response may cause further damage to your lawn if the problem is not properly diagnosed. It's not uncommon to see homeowners spending time and money fertilizing their lawns only to discover that the lawn is irreversibly diseased and must be entirely replaced.

Avoid this harrowing and expensive situation by hiring professionals to get to the root of the problem and solve the problems.

2. Time, Hassle, and Tools

Time is money, and the more time you spend working on your lawn, the less time you have to follow other pursuits. Your time is worth a lot, and if you don't enjoy lawn maintenance,  you're much better off delegating the work to someone with the experience and tools to do it well.

If you really want your lawn to thrive, you should be doing a minimum of five to six fertilization treatments per year. These treatments can be hard to remember, and they require time and specialized equipment. If you have a large lawn, of course these treatments will take more time than if you have just a small patch of grass.

Finally, you need to figure the expense of tools into your calculations. One of the biggest frustrations of DIY lawn care is that most homeowners don't have up-to-date, well-maintained lawn care equipment. Lawn care professionals keep up with equipment, and your lawn will benefit from their regularly sharpened, professional tools and equipment. You won't have to worry about changing the mower's oil, sharpening the blades, fixing the edger, or any of those other maintenance tasks that get pushed to the bottom of your to-do list.

3. Safety

DIY lawn care requires that you go to the store and buy large bags of lawn fertilizer that can be hazardous to the health of your children and pets. After you open the bags and use part of the product, you must store them somewhere, and since fertilizer can cause burns and other dangerous symptoms when consumed by animals and children, it's best to not keep them around at all. Why take the chance?

When you hire a professional lawn service, the service brings the necessary fertilizers and other products with them and then takes them away when they're done, leaving you with a beautiful lawn, your time to use as you wish, and a hassle-free weekend ahead of you.

Robert Palmer is the founder and owner of Weed Pro Lawn Care. Since opening in 2001, Weed Pro Lawn Care has become one of the nation’s leading lawn care companies. A respected leader in both the local community & industry, Rob has received many industry awards, including receiving one of Lawn & Landscapes 2013 Leadership Awards. Additionally, Rob is a regular contributor to the Weed Pro Blog, and other industry magazines and blogs.  Rob on Google+     Rob on LinkedIn     Rob on Twitter

Photo Credit: Benjamin Chun