IMPORTANT LANDSCAPING TASKS YOU SHOULD BE DOING RIGHT NOW

Summer may virtually be over, but this doesn’t mean that your yard deserves to be neglected once the weather starts turning colder. In fact, there are some landscaping tasks that need to be completed at this time of the year to ensure that your garden looks its absolute best by the time spring arrives.

Cleaning and Maintenance

Now that temperatures are starting to drop, it makes working in the garden just that little bit more comfortable, providing you with the perfect opportunity to start cleaning up your yard and garden beds. Decomposing debris provides an ideal environment for harmful insects to lay eggs and for plant diseases to take hold, so it should all be raked up and cleared away before the first frost arrives.

Other maintenance tasks to focus on now include:

• Turning over compost piles one last time before cold weather hits
• Cleaning up flower beds, trimming off dead vegetation and trimming perennials back that have finished flowering
• Take cuttings from plants that you’d like to propagate
• Spending an hour or two weeding each week – this will prevent weeds from going to seed and multiplying as soon as it gets warm again
• Raking up fallen leaves – these can be added to compost or used as mulch for garden beds

Get Planting

This is the ideal time for planting trees and shrubs because they will experience a lot less planting stress than during any other season. Even though temperatures will drop soon, their roots will continue growing underground – which will be a tremendous help if summer drought occurs.

Now is also the time when any spring bulbs should be planted as well because it will provide your garden with an array of vibrant colors when spring arrives.

Get that Mulch Down

After a long, hot and dry summer, chances are that any mulch you may have placed in your garden beds will be thin and virtually non-existent. Placing a new layer down will protect plant roots from the cold winter, while also helping to keep your yard looking great. It’s recommended that mulch layers not be thicker than about two to three inches though.

Continue Watering

Although it may look like your plants are going into hibernation, their roots will still be actively growing during this time of the year. Shrubs, trees, evergreen perennials and anything else you may have planted recently will need to be watered until such time as the ground officially freezes for the winter. If the area you live in receives decent amounts of rain during fall, you may not need to water that often. However, if your area doesn’t receive much rain during this time of the year, it’s recommended that you water deeply approximately once a week.

Getting the above-mentioned tasks completed before the first frost arrives will help ensure that your garden will be able to not only survive the winter; your plants, shrubs and trees will look absolutely fantastic when spring eventually arrives.