Spring Landscaping – Prepping Your Lawn and Landscaping

March is now here and spring is on the way, which means it’s time to start preparing for your spring landscaping projects. It may be too early to actually start landscaping, but it is a good idea to start planning for it now so you’re ready when the sunshine hits. Once the ground thaws and the harsh winter weather subsides, you can begin your spring lawn care regimen in full force.

The cold temperatures and weather conditions of winter can damage your landscape and plants. March is the perfect time to begin your spring preparation and start fresh for the new season. Waiting until your lawn is completely dry before you begin to work on it and add any lawn care is crucial on how effective it will be. First, you need to start with a spring clean-up to prep your current landscape.

Get Your Spring Landscaping Started With A Spring Clean-Up

After a long winter, you need to start fresh with a clean lawn. Your landscape will only be as good as the canvas you start with. This is where spring clean-up comes into play. The first step to spring clean-up is gathering winter debris, sticks, and leaves that have accumulated over the colder season. If you have covered any of your plants, shrubs, or mulch areas for winter, these coverings can be removed.

The next step is to prune trees, shrubs, and bushes. Most likely they will have dead limbs, branches, and leaves that need to be removed in order for new growth to occur. You may be able to do some pruning yourself, but we recommend hiring a professional team of lawn care experts, such as Four Seasons Landscape Management, to thoroughly prune your landscape. This is critical for tall and hard-to-reach places and also ensures a polished and uniform look to your trees, shrubs, and bushes.

Another aspect of spring clean-up that many homeowners often overlook is taking care of hibernating bugs that will start to do damage once the weather warms up. If left unattended, these bugs can and will attack your landscaping, leaving you with a mess on your hands. If you are investing time and resources into proper spring landscaping, pest control is essential to keeping it healthy.

One more factor of spring clean-up is assessing and surveying your lawn for mold or fungus that could be lurking in small areas after having too much exposure to moisture during winter. This leads us to the next phase of preparing your lawn and landscape for spring.

Hardscaping, Planting, and Dethatching

As we mentioned above, the “clean-up” portion of your spring lawn care routine requires clearing out the leftover rubbish of spring, also known as dethatching. Dethatching is a way to remove the dead soil, plants, and any other debris blocking the roots from getting fresh nutrients for growth. After you have dethatched your lawn, you are ready for seeding and planting.

If you didn’t get around to planting in the fall, spring is the second-best time of year to do so. By mid-April, you should seed your lawn to avoid hot weather that can prevent new growth from sprouting.

Aerating a lawn is a necessary step in your spring planting routine in order to allow oxygen, moisture, and nutrients to get to the roots of your plants. This is done by making holes in the grass where you notice any brown, waterlogged, or bare spots in your lawn.

The next step in the spring landscaping routine is to add a layer of mulch on top of the soil to create a protective layer that will conserve water, protect plants, and suppress weeds from growing. In order to further protect your plant beds from weeds you need to fertilize the lawn, but be sure to not overuse fertilizer as it can have negative effects.

After fertilizer, apply herbicides to your lawn to help prevent various types of weeds, such as crabgrass, from growing and taking over your fresh growth. After weeds begin to grow it can be difficult to get them to stop, so it’s best to combat them before they get out of control or grow at all.

The final portion of preparing your landscape for spring is to clean up and maintain any surrounding areas of your yard that need touch-ups or improvement. You can easily enhance the hardscaping features of your lawn by edging your yard, trimming down plant beds, and clearing off your patio. All of these things will boost the overall curb appeal of your landscape and make your lawn more visually appealing to guests.

While many of these steps you may be able to complete yourself, we advise you to turn to the professionals at Four Seasons Landscaping Management. We are able to provide quality, professional landscape care that will leave your property radiant this spring. If you are in need of any spring lawn preparation services for this upcoming season, let our dedicated team of lawn care experts help! For a limited time, we are offering 2 FREE lawn care applications to any new customers this spring. Schedule a free landscape consultation today to get started.