Getting your yard or outside areas ready for a new season is always a good idea. Fall cleaning usually entails gathering and removing sticks, leaves, or other waste. A thorough fall cleaning will likely produce greener grass and a fruitful growing season. In fact, by simply doing a yard clean-up, you can significantly increase your garden's chance of surviving the winter. That said, here’s what you need to know about outdoor fall cleaning.
1. Clean Your Yard and Garden
The first step should be to ensure that you remove all debris from your yard and garden. Be sure to remove the debris and waste that has gathered in your yard or garden because they can affect your drainage. So, ensure to clear the yard and garden of any yard waste such as tree branches and weeds. The next step would be to rake up your garden. Then, remove all diseased, dead, and rotting plants from the plant bed or garden beds and any rotting fruits and vegetables. One neat trick for disposing of fall yard waste is to take it to an organic recycling facility.
Moreover, having a new plant bed or garden bed during the fall season could be a terrific idea. You can first trim the grass as short as possible using your lawnmower, then you can cover it up with multiple layers of newspaper and then spread the fertilizer on top of the heaps. You'll have a great new planting area brimming with earthworms in the spring.
2. Soil Aeration
The holes that were created by the water, oxygen, and nutrients can deeply reach the grass roots during the aeration process. This will help make your lawn stronger and healthier. Keep in mind that when the soil becomes compacted, it’ll be difficult to get the nutrients that the plants will need to flourish. Also, water doesn’t soak into compacted soil; it just slides off the surface. But your lawn will be given a chance to breathe because aeration loosens the soil.
Aeration is important and beneficial not only for lawns but also to a small greenhouse. Soil aeration provides the topsoil with oxygen, allowing soil bacteria and plant roots to breathe. Aeration softens the topsoil and improves its capacity to absorb water. It can be done in various methods and the success of the process depends on the soil's characteristics and the area's size.
3. Clean The Gutters
Cleaning your gutters is essential in fall season. When leaves fall, your gutter system may become clogged. Many people are oblivious to the damage that leaves can do to a gutter system. Incorrect drainage of water can occur when leaves obstruct gutters. It's time to clean the gutters when there’s heaps of leaves along the roof edge and in the gutters.
When cleaning and inspecting your gutters, it's crucial to consider your safety. Your ladder must be in a safe and stable place to prevent slippage. Then, clear the gutters of the waste with a tiny plastic scoop. You may buy gutter scoops or you can use a kid's sandbox shovel.
After clearing the debris, remove the remaining waste in the gutter and downspouts by flushing them away using a garden hose. Doing this will help to expose gutter issues like leaks. Fortunately, you can patch these leaks or tiny hole by yourself. You can buy caulk and use it to seal off tiny holes and dripping joints.
4. Fertilize The Grass
Plant development is restricted by the cool air and it's the same with the grass. Due to the warmer soil temperature than the surrounding air, roots continue to grow underground. The green grass aboveground captures and convert sunlight and turn it into plant foods. This process is known as photosynthesis. Once the sun energy is converted, it’ll be transported to the roots and then stored for later use. Fall fertilization will help in this by feeding the roots and promoting their growth and depth. Having a grass with healthy roots encourage the growth of a healthy and thicker lawn.
It’s best season to fertilize the grass. The moisture provided by morning dew during this season helps the lawn absorb the fertilizer well. Additionally, the grass can improve its vitality before a long winter. Typically, the lawn fertilizer can handle the many types of soil and turf and can gradually add nutrients to the soil over time.
5. Rake or Mulch Leaves
Autumn's display of leaves is a beautiful sight. However, you can’t ignore falling leaves if you want your lawn to stay healthy and lush. Whether you rake and bag them or mulch them, removing the leaves help prevents your lawn from withering. However, there are also benefits to mulching and chopping the leaves.
Tree leaves make up about 2% of the nitrogen. Nitrogen is the essential plant nutrient your lawn grass needs the most to stay healthy, thick, and green. If you mulch the leaves, your lawn will benefit from organic ingredients and natural fertilizer. Not only that, mulch leaves can also help prevent weed from sprouting into your lawn.
You can use standard lawnmower to mulch leave. However, a mulching mower might be an excellent solution if you need to quickly deal with a lot of heavy leaves. It cuts the leaves into the grass. Mulching mowers assist in maintaining the long-term health of your grass while doing routine mowing.
6. Prune Shrubs
Shrubs that don't bloom need to be clipped in the late winter or early spring. As soon as a flowering shrub blooms, it needs to be clipped. There are, in fact, certain exceptions. For example, a damaged patch must be cut as soon as possible.
Light pruning or shaping can be done on shrubs with uneven growth following subsequent shaping at any time. But it’d be best if you did this in the fall. Numerous shrubs may need to be pruned due to their vigorous summer growth.
Conclusion
Your lawn and plantings must undergo one last round of landscaping before winter to weather the season in good shape. Plant infections that emerge in the fall are likely to persist until the spring thaw by thriving in waste products, including dead branches, soil, and leaves. Rapidly proliferating fungal colonies will survive the winter in the dead plant materials and return to infect your yard in the spring. That’s why fall cleaning is so important. You can engage in fall cleaning individually. Or, you can engage a landscaper or professional yard cleaner to handle this if you are physically unable to.