Fall has arrived and with it comes fall yard cleanup chores. From removing leaves to mowing the lawn until the first freeze, to adding lime to the acidic soil of your lawn, you have a lot to do to keep you busy throughout autumn.
10 Must-Do Fall Yard Cleanup Chores
To make your yard look tidy before the winter wind blows as well as to prepare your lawn and landscape for spring, you need to do the following chores this fall:
- Transplanting perennials and planting spring bulbs: It’s time to cut back those perennials such as hostas, lilies, sedum and other plants that are outgrowing their space. You can split up your perennials and plant them in newly dug flower beds, or you can compost them if you have no more room. It’s also time to plant spring bulbs, such as hyacinths, irises, and crocuses. You can use a poly cart to carry garden materials to dump in your compost bin or fire pile, such as our 10 cu.ft. poly cart or 17 cu.ft. poly cart. These heavy-duty dump carts help you haul potting mix, rakes, hoes, bulbs and fall flowers to your different flower beds.
- Picking up leaves for mulch or compost: Before you mow your lawn, change your mower to the mulch setting. You don’t want leaves to lay on your lawn all winter long because it results in bare patches as well as causes lawn diseases.
Plus, if you mulch your leaves and grass clippings, you add an extra 25% of nitrogen which may help eliminate the need for fall lawn fertilization.
Learn more about the importance of removing leaves from your lawn.
- Removing debris from the lawn and flower beds: Tidy up your landscaped areas before putting them to bed for the winter. Remove twigs, leaves and cut back dead plants.
Believe it or not, there are still some weeds that need to be pulled. Pull out annuals and replace them with ornamental kale, cauliflower and mums for pops of color.
If a severe storm blows through, you can quickly clean up your lawn with our
42” Tow-Behind Lawn Sweeper. It makes picking up leaves, tree limbs and post-storm cleanup easy and fast.
- Add a fresh layer of mulch: Mulch is more than pretty window-dressing. Indeed, it helps to prevent frost heaving during a freeze-thaw cycle. It regulates the temperature of the soil, gives a boost of nitrogen and holds in moisture during the cold winter months. You should have no more than 4” of mulch on your beds and under your trees and shrubs. You should first remove old mulch and add a fresh 2”-3” layer. Our poly carts help you transport mulch from your driveway to your landscaped beds.
- Finish core aeration, dethatching, and overseeding chores before the leaves really start to fall: If there was a lot of foot traffic on your yard this summer or you have heavy clay soil, you need to core aerate your lawn before overseeding it. If you’re just dethatching this fall, our 40” tow-behind or 48” tow-behind dethatchers help loosen up thatch to help your soil breathe.
Learn more about the benefits of dethatching in this post: Do you want a healthy lawn? Then dethatch it.
- Got moles? Mole tunnels create zig-zag lines throughout your yard… And moles don’t always use the same runway twice. You can step on the tunnels and mounds to flatten them to grade. However, this method is only practical for light mole damage and isn’t recommended for extensive tunnel systems. Instead, you can roll down those runways with a lawn roller. We suggest you start by spraying the tunnels with a garden hose to wet the ground. Then try to roll the roller only over the mounds to avoid causing any compaction to the rest of the yard.
- Winterize your lawn with fertilizer and pre-emergent weed control: Don’t forget that last dose of lawn fertilizer to help develop deep roots systems that collect moisture and nutrients from the soil. Our push spreaders and tow behind spreaders help you to distribute fertilizer evenly on your yard.
- Prune dead or diseased limbs from trees and shrubs: While you don’t want to trim your trees and bushes right before winter, it’s wise to remove any dead limbs you see so they don’t fall off during a heavy storm. Many limbs that are dead will actually hold on to their leaves longer; so if they should be dropping their leaves and the fall and are not, this could be a bad sign. (Helpful tip; Our tow-behind carts hold limbs and leaves as you prune, making for easy transport.)
- Keep mowing until the ground freezes: If you live in Zone 1, you still need to mow your lawn until the ground freezes. You don’t want your turfgrass to get long and bend over creating a haven for disease to develop over the winter. Also, your turfgrass will slowly be growing so you won’t have to cut your lawn more than once a week.
- Clean and winterize your gardening and lawn tools: After you’re done with your fall cleanup chores, it’s vital to clean your gardening and lawn tools. Wash off shovels, hoes, and spade. Be sure to use alcohol to wash away any disease that could infect your other plants. Also, clean and sharpen lawn cutters as well as maintain your mowers for winter storage.
Brinly-Hardy Helps You with All of Your Fall Lawn Chores
At Brinly-Hardy, we have a wide selection of lawn and garden tools to help you create a beautiful property. Our products can be found at The Home Depot (in the U.S. and Canada), Lowes, Hayneedle, Amazon, RuralKing.com and Northern Tool and Equipment.
And if you need additional parts, you can visit our
online store. If you need customer service, you can fill out our
contact form. Or you can call us at (877)728-8224, Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET.
Source:
Shea, Jillian, “
Fall Yard Cleanup 101.”
