About Lawn Care Guides

I grew up mowing golf courses in Augusta. Not the famous one—I wish—but a public course where I learned that grass isn't just grass. The difference between a 419 Bermuda fairway and a bent grass green? Night and day. That's where I learned to obsess over mowing heights, stripe patterns, and why 1/16 of an inch actually matters.

After getting my degree in Turfgrass Science from UGA, I spent 8 years managing athletic fields and high-end residential lawns. You know what I learned? Homeowners get sold a lot of nonsense. 'Apply this magic formula every month!' Meanwhile, the grass doesn't need half of it.

Here's my controversial take: Most homeowners over-fertilize Bermuda grass. I've seen it a thousand times. They dump 6 pounds of nitrogen per year thinking more is better, then wonder why they're fighting fungus and thatch buildup. I run my test lawns on 4 pounds split into small doses, and they look better with way less headache.

I started writing for Lawn Care Guides because I got tired of seeing the same generic advice everywhere. 'Water deeply but infrequently'—okay, but what does that mean in Georgia humidity with afternoon thunderstorms? I'll tell you exactly: 0.75 inches twice a week, skip the irrigation if we get more than 0.5 inches of rain. That's the real stuff.

I built Lawn Care Guides because I got tired of reading generic lawn advice that clearly wasn't written by anyone who'd actually maintained a lawn. So I assembled a team of real experts and built the platform to share what we've learned.

My role is behind the scenes — I handle the equipment testing, product reviews, site development, and making sure every piece of content meets our standards. When you see a mower review with actual runtime data, that's me with a stopwatch.

Anton is the grass expert. Sarah is the disease expert. I'm the guy who makes sure their knowledge reaches you in a way that's actually useful. I also personally test every piece of equipment we recommend.

I still get my hands dirty — my test lawn in Raleigh is where we evaluate products in real-world conditions. But the deep turfgrass science? That's Anton's domain.

I spent my Ph.D. years at Texas A&M studying fungal diseases in turfgrass. Thrilling stuff, right? Actually, it was. Because homeowners lose thousands of dollars every year treating the wrong disease with the wrong product at the wrong time.

Case in point: Last summer, a friend called me in a panic about 'brown patch' destroying his St. Augustine. I drove over, took one look, and knew immediately—that wasn't brown patch, it was chinch bug damage. Different problem, completely different solution. He was about to waste $200 on fungicide when he needed $30 of insecticide.

That's why I joined Lawn Care Guides. Lawn disease diagnosis isn't sexy, but it's where homeowners burn the most money. My job is to help you tell the difference between take-all root rot and summer dormancy, between dollar spot and dog urine spots, between actual problems and things that'll fix themselves.

I review every disease and pest section on this site. When we say 'brown patch appears as circular patches 1-3 feet in diameter with a smoke ring border,' that's not copy-pasted from a textbook. That's me describing what I've photographed and analyzed in actual lawns.