Have you ever thought about what it takes to care for your lawn in time for the winter season? While it’s more natural to focus on caring for your landscape during spring and summertime, it is just as important to keep it healthy during the wintertime. If you live in an area that experiences accumulation of snow and ice, you will especially want to make sure your trees, shrubs, and overall landscape are happy and healthy. Here are a few tips to keep in mind when prepping for the winter.
6 Tasks to Prepare Your Landscaping for Winter
- Rake up those leaves and remaining objects on your lawn. While it isn’t always the most enjoyable task to rake leaves, depending on the size of your lawn, it is important. Leaving dead leaves across the landscape makes it more difficult for new grass to grow during the spring and summer seasons. If there are a lot of rocks taking up space as well, removing those will not only help with growth but will also take less toll on your lawnmower when it is time to start mowing. Some people like to let the leaves rot and stay in the ground for mulch and compost but this does take a while and if you’re not going to rake them up, best to mulch them with your mower to get the composting going quicker.
- Apply aeration to your lawn. This will free up the soil, making it easier to soak up water and other nutrients that allow for grass to grow and come up healthy. I heard that simply waking around in high heels do the trick but to be sure, professional aeration will always be the best.
- Pruning your shrubs and trees is important, as it helps prevent the spread of diseases which attack them during the wintertime. It’s a good idea to do this when the temperatures are above freezing. Pruning right now can be tricky as you don’t want to prompt new leaf or stem growth but pruning once all the leaves are off will make clean up a one and done task.
- Take care to winterize your sprinkler system before the freezing weather hits. Using compressed air to blow out any remaining water or moisture will also prevent it from freezing during the winter, which could result in costing you a significant amount of money to repair or replace. I don’t think we’re going to get many more days of warm weather so anytime between now and the middle of December is a good time for irrigation blow out.
- Prevent frost cracking of your tree stumps by wrapping them in paper tree wrap. Use duct tape to secure the wrap around the stump, but don’t forget to unwrap it when the warmer weather comes through, so it grows naturally. This is really only for ornamental trees and those that might have a major risk of death or frost in our climate.
- If you live in an area that experiences harsher winter weather, applying mulch to your landscape and around the bases of trees and shrubs will certainly help protect them against the colder temperatures. Of course, I’m a big proponent of Fertil-mulch. It really is the best!
There are many more tips and tricks to properly maintaining a healthy landscape. Keeping your property taken care of is not only good for the environment but also cost-effective in the long term.
While this might be a lot to do, there is someone that can do this all for you! Call First Fruits Landscaping for all of your Pacific Northwest landscaping, gardening, and yard maintenance needs. Would love to help you design and prepare your garden or landscape for the entire year.