Throughout spring and summer you spend time turning your lawn into something magnificent. If you want to keep your outdoor spaces thriving it is imperative to tackle some important fall lawn care projects. Here are a few simple steps are all it takes to prepare your yard and garden for the winter ahead:
Lawn Care Tasks
During autumn, you want to do everything you can to put your lawn into a healthy condition before winter. weeds take up water and nutrients that your grass could otherwise be using to flourish, start with removing any weeds on your property as soon as possible. Whether that involves pulling them by hand or utilizing an organic weed control service. If you’re DIYing your weed abatement, follow it up with applying an appropriate winterizing fertilizer throughout your lawn, otherwise feel free to contact the experts at Greener Grass for more assistance.
Leaf Cleanup
If you have a lot of trees on your property, you likely also experience a lot of leaf drop. This can be a small task on newly built homes with smaller trees, but if you have tall trees leaf removal can be a monumental project. The easiest method to take on the massive amounts of leaves is to mulch them with your lawn mower 1-3 times per week depending on the rate at which leaves are falling. If you have a large volume that completely covers your yard with a thick layer – continue shredding the leaves while mulching them, then use the bagger on your mower to pick up the debris with ease. The shredded leaves make for great compost in your vegetable garden, or you can put the debris into bags or the bed of your truck then haul to a local compost site. It is critical to remove leaves from your lawn in order to allow air and sunlight to reach the grass before winter arrives to prevent an absolute mess in the spring.
Preparing Your Perennials
Perennials are plants that grow back each year and they require special attention in the fall. Before winter sets in, you need to cut back all of your perennials (the spent foliage that has wilted), this is typically performed after the first frost. Different weather patterns can prevent some perennial varieties from “wilting” prior to winter’s arrival, these can be left to be trimmed back in the spring. Perennial plants have a lot of benefits for wildlife that you may not realize. The main advantage of cleaning up your perennial garden beds in the autumn is that your landscape areas will look a bit neater.
Winterizing Your Trees and Shrubs
Some trees and shrubs require a little more attention than others before the winter. For example, smaller deciduous shrubs have fragile branches. It can be beneficial to add structures to protect them from the weight of heavy snowfall. These shrubs will drop their leaves in the fall so there is not much wintertime visual interest. Evergreen shrubs are inherently different because they add a beautiful look to a bare winter landscape bed. If you choose the correct evergreen species, you will not need to worry too much about their protection during the winter. For most other trees and shrubs, winterizing is fairly simple. Be sure to give every tree and shrub a decent drink of water before the ground completely freezes. One last watering will help prepare the roots for a long winter. Your shrubs and trees will be more than ready for expansive growth come spring.
If you are looking for help with professional lawn care and pest prevention throughout the Canton & Akron metro areas, reach out to Greener Grass today.