End of Season Yard Care Projects
Autumn is a perfect time to look back on how your yard weathered the summer months and to make plans for next year. Perfect projects for fall include planting trees, repairing hardscape items such as trellises, flower boxes and garden border edging; and cleaning and maintaining your tools and equipment. Let's take a look at some projects you can tackle this weekend:
Plant trees now
Fall is the ideal time to plant trees. Visit http://www.arborday.org to learn about the many types of trees that will grow well where you live or walk through your local garden center where many trees will be on sale. Learn how to plant a tree.
Clean garden tools
Scrape and wash dirt from garden tools before storing them for the winter. Remove rust with a wire brush, followed by a good rub down with steel wool. A light coating of oil will help preserve your tools.
Sharpen your shovels
Have you sharpened your shovels lately? It's easy. You'll need a vise and a file. Here's how: Use a metal file such as a medium or bastard-cut file which can be found at any hardware store or home center. Clean your shovel with a wire brush to remove rust. Place the tool firmly in the vice with the face of the shovel exposed, facing up. Using your file, move the file along the edge of the shovel towards the point, following the same angle of the shovel's blade. Push the file away from you in even strokes as you work—never back and forth. Then flip the shovel over and use sand paper to smooth out the back edge.
Do lawn mower maintenance
First, disconnect the spark plug on the engine. Hose down your mower deck, removing dirt and debris. Tune up your lawn mower each year - fall is the perfect time to do it for a quick start next spring. If you prefer to take your lawn mower to a dealer for this service, you'll get it done more quickly now than in spring. If you want to do it yourself, it's easy and inexpensive. Visit our Equipment Know-How section to learn how!
Repair outdoor hardscape
Take a weekend and check out all of your outdoor hardscape. If weather permits, it's a perfect time to paint the fence, trellises or arbor. Consider building or adding flowerboxes to add a personal touch to your home.
Learn something new
It's fun and empowering to learn something new. Look around your yard and ask yourself, "What have I always wanted to grow, change or add to my yard?" Then pick a project and do it. To keep yourself on track, create a list of steps needed to complete the project, then cross them off as you go along. Your project might be creating a new garden bed or adding a border around an existing bed; learning how to tune-up your mower; adding fun fall yard decorations…the ideas are endless. If you are faced with a rainy fall weekend and can't get your outdoor yard care in, peruse the web or go to your library and page through lawn and garden magazines for an hour to get your creative juices flowing.
Until next season…happy yard care!
