Fall is a good time to get your yard in good shape by cleaning it up and clearing out leftover summer growth for winter. This will make your yard ready for when spring growth begins to emerge throughout your yard's landscaping, making it easier to begin planting spring vegetation and seeds. You can also use some of the collected materials as mulch or landscaping material. Here are some tips to help you prepare your yard's landscaping for winter's arrival in this manner.
Trim Dead Growth
After your vegetable garden, shrubbery, and flowering plants have grown all summer, the change in temperatures and night freezes causes your plants to go into hibernation and lose their leaves. Use this time to trim back dead growth on your flowers and remove any brown vegetation, trimming them down to a few inches above their roots. Use a pair of garden trimmers or kitchen scissors, depending on the size of the vegetation.
Make sure you are removing or trimming plants, depending on the type of plant each is. Perennial plants will regrow when it warms in the spring, so you don't want to pull them completely from the ground. Annual plants that don't regrow the next year can be pulled from the ground, root and all. Toss them into your compost pile, into a curbside compost pick-up, or into your trash for disposal.
Clean Up Branches
Pick up any fallen tree branches to collect them for chipping into mulch. You can rent or borrow a wood chipper to chip all your loose branches into mulch that puts nutrients back into your soil. Use tree trimming shears to cut off smaller dead branches from your trees or a chain saw to safely cut off larger branches, which will make your trees more healthy.
If you have a tree that is completely dead, you may want to hire a professional tree service to safely remove the tree. Then, chip any of these branches with the wood chipper to add to your wood chip mulch.
Spread the mulch onto areas of your landscaping or mix them into your vegetable garden plot. Over the winter, the wood chips will begin to decompose and help create a rich soil for planting next season. And a wood chip landscaping mulch helps your yard look attractive and well-maintained.
Clear Leaves
If you have any amount of trees growing in your yard or along your neighbor's fence line, you will have leaves collecting on your lawn and landscaping. Use your lawn mower to pick up and mulch the leaves into the mower's collection bag. You can also rake them from your other landscaped areas. Then, add the leaves into your garden plot soil to boost its nutrients for next season.
Contact a custom landscaping service for more help.