How to Clean Your Yard Effectively

In order to ensure that the next growing season is a fruitful one, you must prepare your yard now. Most people clean their yards before the winter season comes. Having a clean yard ensures that it is not overrun with pests so that it can be prepared to begin growing again when spring comes.

Why Is It Important to Clean Your Yard?

During the fall season, the leaves begin to fall, so this is an obvious time to begin cleaning the yard. Along with raking the many leaves that fall to the ground, you also must apply fresh fertilizer to your cool-season grass. This is also the time to reseed.

You might find that yard work is a chore that you would rather do without, but keeping your yard clean is very important. The first thing that anyone sees of your home is your yard, so you want to look beautiful. This will especially be the case when you want to sell your home. A clean yard increases your home’s value and makes it stand out amongst the other houses on your street.

When you keep your yard clean, it actually becomes an air conditioner. A clean yard releases a large amount of oxygen into the air, but it also traps a lot of dust and dirt around the outside of your home. This keeps the oxygen level high in your home and keeps it clean too. A clean yard doesn’t leave bugs and other pests places to hide, so they will go elsewhere.

As you remove extraneous shrubs, vines and branches, there isn’t anything that can damage the paint or possibly break the windows. The leaves that you rake up will not be able to find their way onto your roof or into your gutters, and this is what causes leaks.

How Do You Effectively Clean Your Yard?

Shred Rather than Crush Your Garden Refuse. 

When it comes time to reduce your branches and other garden materials to smaller pieces, it is better to use a shredder than a crusher. A crusher is generally used for crushing heavy-duty objects, such as stones. In most cases, that is not what you want to eliminate from your yard. A shredder is an environmentally friendly device, and it can shrink very large pieces of wood and other materials. A crusher, on the other hand, is a device that is extremely loud and is also hard to handle. Therefore, shredding would be preferable for your yard.

Choose a Sharp Mower Blade.

When you decide to mow your lawn, make sure that the blades are sharp and balanced. This will ensure that every blade of grass is cut evenly and cleanly. If the blade is dull, it will not be able to cut the grass. Instead, it will tear it and damage it. When this occurs, the grass turns yellow, and it needs to be watered more often. It will also become diseased more easily.

Mow the Top One-Third of the Grass Blade. 

After you mow the top one-third of your grass blades, you will not want to rake them up. These blades will decompose quickly after they are cut, and this provides your lawn with one-third of its nitrogen. The layer of clippings also prevents water from evaporating and keeps weeds from appearing. For warm climates, it is best to maintain a lawn with blades of 1 to 2 inches, and for cooler climates, 3- to 4-inch blades are best.

Soak Your Lawn Rather than Sprinkle It.

Soaking your lawn causes the roots to develop so that they can reach subsurface water. If you are only providing light sprinklings, the roots cannot develop as deeply, and you need to water the lawn more often. The best way to water is to give your lawn 1 to 2 inches of water each week and every three or four days. The best time to water your lawn is in the morning when water evaporates less. This keeps the lawn from being wet overnight when it is susceptible to disease.

Spot-Control the Weeds.

Spot-controlling the weeds is easier than having to tackle a whole bunch of weeds at one time. Scotts Spot Weed Control for Lawns helps you accomplish this goal. It’s easy to use because all you have to do is point and spray the encroaching weeds before they can spread their seeds and cause other weeds to take root.

What Are Other Ways of Keeping Your Yard in Shape?

The time comes when you must call an arborist to have your tree diagnosed. If you notice that your tree leans very far to the left or right in the wind, is shedding a lot of branches or makes creaking sounds after the sun goes down, these are those times. The arborist may inform you that it is time to cut down your tree. Then, you may hire a tree service to cut down the diseased tree and any other trees that may need to come down as well. The tree service will be able to shred your trees so that you can take the wood pieces and use them as mulch.

What About After a Storm?

After a storm, you must take some time to clean up your lawn. Many branches and leaves will have entered your lawn during the storm. Winds are strong, and they have the capability of damaging your plants and trees. So, you must examine each plant or shrub to see if there is any damage. Then, you need to remove it. The wind may have also weakened or damaged the trees. In this case, remove the damaged branch so that everything looks healthy.

Written by Taylor McKnight, Author for Murrysville Machinery