Commercial lawn care and landscape maintenance has become a thriving business in Rowan County. Since the early 1980s this industry has grown from three landscape services to well over 50 lawn care and landscape entities.

Many homeowners are now searching for a lawn care company before spring’s busy season. Below are a few tips to select a lawn care company for your home.

• Degree of service. Some may only want weed control and fertilizer application. They opt to mow their lawn themselves, thus they only need partial service. Others may want a total maintenance package. Part-time workers often fit the bill for those who only need occasional care. Lawn care companies applying pesticides and weed control must be properly licensed by the NC Department of Agriculture.

• Acceptable practices. Following lawn care procedures NC State University and the Cooperative Extension Service recommends are vital for successful lawn and landscape maintenance. Lawn maintenance companies should follow university information when applying seed, fertilizers and pesticides.

• Reliability. Many lawn care companies provide some guarantee of their work. Customers must realize that some problems, especially lawns, take time to resolve and realize that if they impose certain restrictions, problems may still exist.

• Recommendations. Probably the most important method of choosing a lawn maintenance company is to review their work. A personal inquiry from friends and homeowners is a key factor.

Darrell Blackwelder deblackw@ncsu.edu is the retired horticulture agent and director with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service in Rowan County.