Tips for Fall: The Yard!
October is here and any hopes our Oxi Fresh Carpet Cleaning technicians had for the warm weather continuing have fallen by the wayside. Well, if Summer won’t continue, we best get ready for Fall. Oxi Fresh, your carpet cleaning company, is here to help with its Tips for Fall series.
This week we’re talking about how to prepare your yard, so let’s start by looking at its biggest feature, the lawn.
The Lawn
- Watering: Believe it or not, it’s good to keep the lawn watered until mid to late Fall. Your grass still needs water as it prepares itself for winter and, given how little water it gets during the Winter, you don’t want to deprive it during Fall. Of course, if Fall rains can take care of the lawn, you don’t need to water it. Over-watering can be just as bad as under-watering.
- Mowing: You should mow your lawn during the Fall and stop once the grass stops growing back or the growth is to slow to notice. A good grass height for Fall is about 2 1/2 inches.
- Raking/Mulching: We all ready talked about leaves in our last post, so just one or two things here. It’s best to not let leaves sit on the grass for a long time – rake or mulch regularly so that the lawn can properly breath. Also, when you rake, be sure to rake up the thatch that’s built up in the lawn over the year. This can be hard work, but the grass will be healthier come Spring.
The Garden
- Tidying Up: Come Fall, most of your garden plants will be dead or dying. Now’s the time to clean up the beds by removing any dead plant matter.
- Rototiller: This is optional, but tilling your garden beds can make the soil easier to work with in Spring.
- Mulching: Mulching your beds will help prevent weeds from growing and will protect the soil over the Winter. There are many mulches you can buy, but why buy when nature provides? Those leaves in your yard can be shredded with a mulching mower and spread across your garden beds.
The Trees and Bushes
- Watering: Stop watering trees in early fall and begin again once leaf-bearing trees are bare, unless rainfall will take care of them. This allows the trees to properly prepare themselves for winter.
- Pruning: Late Autumn and Winter are good times to prune any dead, dying, diseased, or broken branches from the now dormant trees. If you’re unfamiliar with pruning, you may need a professional.
- Covering Up: Some deciduous bushes should be covered in the Winter to prevent damage during the extreme conditions. Here’s a good guide for creating such a structure.
We here at Oxi Fresh, a green carpet cleaning company, hope that this guide helps you out this Fall. Look for our next post for more tips!
Thanks to the Roseville Urban Forest Foundation and David Beaulieu from About.com for the great information.
