Garden maintenance helps your garden and home look vibrant, lush and healthy all year. It also reduces the appearance of weeds and outdoor pests.
Regular home maintenance prevents costly repairs. For example, clogged gutters can lead to water damage and roof leaks. Keeping up with yard cleanup and removing rotting leaves, seeds and fruit prevents rodent infestations.
Spring
The warmer weather of spring is a welcome sight, but it also highlights the work that needs to be done to prepare your garden and home for summer. As the ground thaws, it’s important to make sure all outdoor water systems are working properly.
The spring season is a good time to weed flower beds, and rake away any leaves or debris left over from fall and winter. However, it’s important to wait a few weeks before you rake leaves out of perennial beds. This is when many beneficial insects (such as ladybugs, assassin bugs and damsel bugs) nestle in the leaf litter to survive the winter.
It’s also a great time to trim and prune your trees, bushes and shrubs. This helps them grow in the right shape and can even prevent disease from occurring. Plus, it looks good and makes your garden look healthy!
Summer
Many homeowners tend to neglect their homes in the summer. However, a few summer maintenance items can save you money and prevent costly repairs down the road.
Weeding should be a regular part of garden care. Overgrown weeds compete for water, nutrients and space with garden plants and can starve them of these resources. Regular weeding helps your garden grow stronger, healthier and more productive.
Summer is also a good time to fertilize your garden. Fertilizers add essential plant nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which promote healthy growth and root development.
It’s also important to regularly check the back of your garden for natural debris such as dry leaves or fruit that can rot and attract pests like rats. Also, if your school garden site has a shed or other structure, now is the time to make any needed repairs. Many schools have found success by assigning families to maintain the garden site each week during the summer.
Fall
As summer begins to fade and temperatures start to dip, it’s time to put away lawn furniture and other outdoor gear and clean and sterilize tools and equipment before storing them for winter. This will help prevent rust and also keep harmful pests from spreading to the next season’s crops.
This is also a good time to overseed your lawn with ryegrass, which stays green throughout the cooler months. You should also continue to weed regularly and water as needed. It’s also important to do a soil test and plant new spring plants at this time.
A well-maintained garden provides more than just a beautiful outside space to enjoy with friends and family. Regular maintenance helps to protect your garden from pests, ward off disease and aerate the soil for optimal health. In addition, it may increase your property value.
Winter
During the winter garden maintenance, you should check fences and furniture for damage or needs to be repaired. You should also drain sprinkler systems and clean out outdoor water sources and pipes to prevent freezing.
Delaying garden clean up until spring also benefits the critters that call your yard home. Insect-nurturing birds like chickadees, wrens, nuthatches, pheobes and robins will continue to feast on protein-rich insects found in dead flower stems and leaf litter throughout the winter. Delaying your garden cleanup until spring will also allow worms and other soil-dwelling creatures to continue feeding on organic debris that hasn’t decomposed yet.