A lawn program is just a short list of decisions made in the right order, at the right soil temperature. The branded versions charge you $475 to $1,000 a year for those decisions. These are the same decisions with the same chemistry, written down, for free.
There are six programs here — or will be. They’re built on two questions: what kind of grass do you have, and how much of a lawn person are you willing to be?
Which one is you?
- The Minimalist doesn’t want a hobby. Two or three passes a year, nothing that needs a sprayer, lawn looks fine.
- The Rationalist wants a clearly better-than-average lawn with bounded effort. Six good decisions a year, one Saturday morning each.
- The Nut wants stripes, PGR schedules, and fungicide rotations — and enjoys it. You know who you are.
Not sure which grass you have or where your lawn actually stands? Take five minutes with Where Are You Now? or get a personalized route through the lawn plan quiz.
Warm-season programs (bermuda, zoysia, St. Augustine, centipede)
The Rationalist Program — a full year for about $200
Six soil-temperature-triggered rounds: pre-emergent splits, cheap nitrogen done right, spot-spraying instead of blanket-spraying, and the honest fungicide question. Same active ingredients TruGreen sprays, roughly a fifth of the price. Start here — this is the middle program on purpose.
The Minimalist Program — coming soon
The shortest defensible path to “lawn looks fine.” Until it’s live: run Rounds 1, 2, and 6 of the Rationalist program and skip the rest. That’s most of the benefit in three passes.
The Nut Program — coming soon
PGR scheduling, foliar iron, fungicide group rotation. While you wait, the PGR guide and the products list cover the deep end.
Cool-season programs (fescue, bluegrass, ryegrass)
All three cool-season programs are in the works — the calendar flips (fall is your big season, not spring), but the frugal logic is identical. In the meantime, the cool-season crabgrass guide covers the highest-value pass of the year.
How these programs are built
Every program follows the same rules: active ingredients are the product and the brand is the markup, chemistry goes cheapest-pro-grade and equipment goes mid-tier, soil temperature beats the calendar, and every recommendation says why. Where a branded convenience product genuinely earns its premium, the program says that too.
This site uses affiliate links. They don’t change what I recommend. They keep the lights on here.