Maintenance Tips to Get Your Home Ready For Spring
As spring rolls around, it’s a time of optimism and a fresh approach to the year ahead. So, how can you get your home and garden ready for the spring and make sure your yard will look in top condition as the weather finally improves? All too many people ignore spring and don’t start to spend any serious time in the garden until it gets to summer, but failing to put things in place during the spring can mean that your yard doesn’t look as good as it can for the rest of the year. Spring lays the foundations for a bright and vibrant summer.
In this guide, we’ve explored some of the top maintenance tips; you can treat this as a sort of checklist of jobs for your yard so that you can be ready for the seasons to come.
Prepare Your Soil
Preparing your soil is vital if you are looking to plant anything new. Vegetables, flowers, and even trees, all feed on the earth, so they need a good platform. Over the winter, the ground can freeze, and it can be tough to get all the nutrients into the soil. Why do you think farmers spend so long rotating and working on the soil at this time of year?
Preparing the soil may involve adding compost or topsoil and rotating to ensure plenty of nutrient-rich soil for growing in. It may also mean a quick look-through to see if there are pest problems that may need addressing. Your soil needs to carry moisture as well as nutrients, and you should focus on creating a rich environment for things to grow.
Trim Your Trees
Trees don’t stop growing over the winter, and nor do bushes. This means that spring is the perfect time to get your trees trimmed. Simple and small pruning jobs might be something that you can easily do yourself, but you might need the help of professionals if you have more giant trees that have become overgrown.
Trimming trees isn’t just about your space, either. Even though you’ll be amazed at how quickly some types of trees can grow, trimming them is about keeping them healthy and growing properly. There’s an art to knowing what to trim and how to ensure the trees grow upright and stay strong for years to come. A tree is likely to be a feature, so you should consider how important it is to get them trimmed.
While some trees might only need maintenance once every few years, if you’ve got multiple bushes it is likely that every year there will be at least some trimming required.
Fertilize the Lawn
Spring is also time to fertilize your lawn. There are a few different reasons why this is the case. You should buy a specific springtime fertilizer, and use it as the manufacturer suggests. Different fertilizers and “lawn feeders” have different instructions, but they generally follow a pretty similar pattern.
You should apply the fertilizer thoroughly across all of the grass, not just on the areas that look a little bit ragged or weak. On top of that, it’s best to apply them when the soil is moist or when you’re expecting the rain to come.
Fertilizing the lawn in springtime is ideal because of the conditions when it is not too hot and there are probably some showers and spells of moisture to help with the growth. Depending on the type of fertilizer you use, you might then need to wait a while before performing any other lawn maintenance, but as summer approaches you can get a lovely trim to give a thorough, green, and luscious look to your lawn.
Check Your Irrigation
Irrigation is vital for your plants, and you need to make sure you have a system for getting plenty of water to them, but also for drainage to ensure you’re not flooding your plants. If you have set up a number of flower beds or planters, this is the ideal time to check your irrigation and check that all areas of your yard are efficient with water. If you live in an area with restrictions on water usage, this can be even more vital.
In an ideal scenario, you may have sprinklers for your yard. If this is the case, you need to take extra care of them through the winter to ensure they don’t freeze up or get damaged. Spring is the time to take them out and get them working again. A poor irrigation system means that no matter how much time and effort you put into your yard, it’s likely that it won’t look anywhere near as good as it could.
Refresh Mulching
Mulch is one of the most underrated resources in virtually every yard. After the winter has come and gone, spring is the best time to top up your mulch. It can help to create moisture and warmth and encourage the growth of all kinds of different plants. It’s also easy to manage and great for places where the soil isn’t the best.
Over time, mulch can start to thin or degrade, so some fresh mulch every year will go a long way to helping to prepare your yard. Remember that it is low maintenance, and it looks fantastic. On top of that, mulch can suppress the growth of weeds!
Your plants will love mulch, and it looks great, but only if you have a thick coating rather than a thin and pathetic smattering in your yard. Make sure you’ve got plenty around your plants to reap all those fantastic benefits.
Conclusion
Spring is a fantastic time when it comes to your garden, and after a long winter of probably spending all of your time indoors, it’s time to get out, get some vitamin D and start to enjoy all of the benefits that come with your yard. Set yourself up to succeed and create a home and garden others will be envious of. Springtime simply can’t be ignored, and it is the only chance you’ll get to set your garden up for a luscious summertime. Following our simple maintenance tips is a sure-fire way to improve the look of your yard and make sure there isn’t too much work to do through the rest of the year.
