Everyone loves when we give landscape garden maintenance tips. To me, one of the greatest attributes of home ownership is the landscape. If the landscape is
installed properly and taken care of, it can enhance and increase the value of the home. Not to mention the pleasure one gets from living in a greener, brighter, and soothing environment. Today with people’s busy lives, they need lower maintenance landscape that don’t require daily or weekly attention. Unfortunately, no landscape or garden is void of at least a few hours of periodic maintenance.
Getting up close and personal with all your plants is a good way to spend some time outdoors, either monthly or bi-monthly. The following list provides a few timely items that should be addressed in the landscape and garden this time of year.
- Deadhead and cut to the ground daylilies as they will provide a flush of new green foliage within a few weeks.
- Take advantage of the shorter days and cooler nights and over seed and fill in any bare spots in your lawn.
- The cooler nights and shorter days are also perfect for weed development as fall annuals are germinating. Stay ahead of the weeds before they get ahead of you.
- Clean up any tattered foliage from early season perennials, as this will make them look better and give the fall blooming plants a greater prominence in the garden.
- Remove spent flower spikes from hosta.
- Splash a bit of water soluble fertilizer on all of your annual flowers the next time they need water to provide enough nutrients to finish the summer season.
- Prune woody ornamental shrubs and natural prune or shear evergreens as the new growth from the spring has hardened off.
- Aerate your lawn to allow air and nutrients to gain direct entry to the root zone.
- Trim groundcover to give it a manicured appearance.
- Inspect and prepare your leaf removal equipment before the fall season catches you off guard.
Getting your hands dirty doing outdoor housekeeping is as important as indoor housekeeping. Enjoy your time outside breathing the fresh air and working up a good sweat as you give your landscape and garden a good haircut and checkup.