28 May 4 Tips to Freshen Up Your Landscaping This Spring
Whenever winter ends and spring comes around, you begin to feel the temperatures rising and also start seeing more greenery around you. If you maintain a garden or landscaping outside your home, you would know that the new season also brings the job of spring cleaning for that outdoor space. There are crucial tasks that need attention before the grass gets out of control and new leaves sprout where the old leaves have fallen.
The harshness of the winter months can leave your garden in pretty bad shape, which means that you have to get to work in cleaning up the mess. Additionally, you’ll have to begin restoring the beautiful appearance of your garden, which also adds to the aesthetic value of your home. Let’s have a look at all the things you need to do to freshen up your landscaping in the spring.
The Importance of Spring Cleaning
As we have mentioned above, spring cleaning is much more than removing debris and picking up leaves. Rather, it allows you to restore your landscaping to its former glory. Winters aren’t only harsh for you, but your garden also has to bear the brunt of those low temperatures. It also means that the plants, trees, and flowers that you have lovingly grown will have to be revived or planted again.
Let’s move on to the tips of keeping your garden and landscaping fresh this spring.
Remove Debris
The first and foremost step involves removing all of the debris that you find scattered all around your garden. This may not only include fallen leaves, twigs, or branches, but also animal droppings, and much more. Therefore, you will have to take care of any cat or dog feces that you find in your yard, and dispose of it separately. You may also notice garbage that might have been tossed over in your landscaping.
The next step is to remove all of the fallen tree branches, twigs, sticks, pinecones, leaves, or any other large debris in your garden. As a side note, you can use the twigs, branches and sticks for your fireplace, and discard the other items. Once you’re done with this step, you will be left with the really small debris that is now easily visible.
Clean up the entire garden carefully, and keep bagging up all of the debris that you find. Another thing you can do is to grab a rake and run it through the smaller debris. When you collect this, you can place it into your compost pile, or take it to a recycling center so that it doesn’t just go to waste. After completing this step, you will be able to bring out the original appearance of your garden to a greater extent.
Trimming and Pruning
Now that all of the debris is gone, your garden looks much cleaner than before, and you can move your entire focus to the trees, bushes, shrubs and plants that have gone through fall and winter, and are still standing. They will likely be quite bare, with just a few leaves or greenery on them. You will need to trim and prune the branches, leaves, and greenery that is present to make it look cleaner and also make way for new leaves to grow on the branches.
Ensure that you have a pair of pruners for this process. Carefully use it to remove any dead leaves, dried up branches or twigs from the trees, plants, and bushes in your garden. You can easily find a good pair of pruners at your nearest hardware store, if you don’t already own them. Make sure to be extra careful when you are trimming and pruning leaves, because there is the possibility of accidentally attacking the healthy leaves and branches of trees, thus hurting their growth.
Since springtime is the perfect season for plants and trees to grow, trimming and pruning them will help them to grow in the right manner and shape, and also makes for greenery that looks great – which you can enjoy throughout the year.
Removing Old Plants
Although most plants, trees, and shrubs just lose their leaves in the fall and winter, some plants die out from their roots, inevitably not allowing for growth any longer. Such plants have to be removed from your garden, otherwise they can also hurt the growth of the neighboring plants and trees. If you notice a certain plant that is dead, make sure to remove it carefully from the soil, so that other plants aren’t uprooted or damaged.
Most people plant new seeds in the springtime, because it provides the perfect growth conditions for most plants and flowers. For this purpose, removing older plants becomes very important. Moreover, the mulch that is used to protect the plants also goes stale after a year, so you have to dispose of it eventually.
When you rake up the soil to remove the existing mulch, you can also remove the dead or older plants that aren’t growing any longer. In place of these plants, you can put in new seeds and cultivate the soil. Once you have planted the new seeds, you can apply a new layer of mulch, so that it freshens up the landscape greatly and also protects your plants.
Repairing the Lawn
The last step in freshening up your landscape is to repair the lawn. While most people put in new seeds in their gardens in the fall, there might be some rough patches in your lawn, or areas where you see thinner grass as compared to the rest. Once you are done with the overseeding, you can get to work with your lawn mower.
Ideally, you should start mowing your lawn only when the grass is at least 4-5 inches tall, so that you don’t make it too thin. When using the lawn mower for the first time, make sure to only trim the grass, so that it can withstand the dry and warm weather in the summer.
The Takeaway
Your garden has to brave through the extreme heat in the summers, endure a dry spell in the fall, and experience harsh cold in the winters to reach the springtime, where it can finally grow all of its greenery back again. Now, it is up to you to maintain and curate your landscaping properly, so that you can have a beautiful garden to look at every day. And we can’t forget to mention that having a nice outdoor space to enjoy also has various positive effects on your overall health.
If you need expert lawn care services in the greater Austin, Texas area, please don’t hesitate to give GARSC a call! Our team of handyman professionals is ready to assist you with all of your homecare needs.
CALL: 512-360-0480
By: Kayla Gonzales, GARSC Marketing Manager