Property Maintenance Tips
It’s hard to believe that the end of the year is in sight. It feels as though 2019 flew by, and we hope that your year was full of great memories—potentially made even more meaningful by the beautiful green spaces that clients like you have graciously invited us to create and/or maintain.
As the year comes to a close, we’d like to offer our thanks, extending warm wishes of gratitude to you and your family. This Thanksgiving, we are grateful for the fantastic clients that we get to work with on a regular basis, and we look forward to continuing to partner with you in 2020.
With autumn coming to a close, we also wanted to offer some of our best year-end property maintenance tips so that you can ensure your yard is in excellent shape going into the winter season. Performing these tasks now will help guarantee that your property is off to a fantastic start come spring.
Final Leaf Clean-Up and Mow
In November, you’ll want to think about clearing the last of the leaves and performing one final mow of your lawn. Getting leaves up off your property is an essential clean-up task not only because it will make your property look neater, but because fallen leaves can provide shelter to pests such as rodents who may decide to take up residence if you let them go. Similarly, you should be sure to clean up any fallen branches or other debris for the same reason.
A final mow is also important, before grass goes dormant. We often still get significant grass growth in November in this region and you don’t want to cut your mowing season too short. Going into the winter with your lawn neat and trim will help it look its best. But a pre-winter cut will also help prevent your lawn from developing a moldy fungus that can strike longer grasses that aren’t dried out easily by the sun. You can perform your final cut shorter than you usually do for this reason. We typically recommend a height of around 2 to 2.5 inches for that final mow.
Prepare Your Plants
In addition to giving your lawn attention, you’ll also want to prepare your plant beds for the coming winter. This includes cutting back perennials and ornamental grasses on your property which can become an eyesore as they go dormant. Fall cutbacks will also help your plants to look better in the spring.
Though some homeowners choose to leave ornamental grasses long because they provide interesting texture during the winter, it’s a concern that they can also become matted down and quite messy with the various snowfall that will likely occur. This can actually make it take longer for them to “bounce back” in the spring. For that reason, it’s often easier to just trim back those ornamental grasses now and keep them looking neat and tidy.
In terms of winter interest, there are actually quite a few plants that will provide color for your winter landscape and are something to think about for future plantings if you’re feeling as though the colder months are often bleak and dreary on your property.
Irrigation Winterization
During the fall season, our region receives plenty of rainfall so you can definitely shut your system off if you haven’t already done so. By this point, there is no need for additional irrigation.
As we approach the winter season, you’ll also need to have your irrigation system winterized by blowing out the lines. This will prevent freezing and damage as those temperatures begin to drop.
A Professional Hand
If these are tasks that you’d rather not perform yourself, then we certainly invite you to reach out and get a quote on end-of-season maintenance services that your property may need. After all, there are so many wonderful family activities to be enjoying this time of year—the last thing you probably want to do is spend your weekends outside prepping your property for the winter. By working with a pro, you can also feel confident that these services are performed correctly so that your property is ready to handle whatever Old Man Winter has in store this year.
If you don’t require our services for the end of season, then we want to take this opportunity to wish your family a Happy Holiday, now.
We look forward to working with you in the spring!
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