Autumn is a great season to enjoy nature and get your lawn and garden back in shape, so let’s take a look at a few fall landscape maintenance tips to help you spruce things up a bit. Since shrubs and plants grow more slowly as the temperatures cool, it is a great time to get rid of dead branches, spent blossoms and other organic debris. Here are a few specific tips:

Fall maintenance ensures good preparation for landscaping success in the new year

1. Prune and deadhead – You can prune shrubs to control their size and reshape at this time. Remove dead branches, blossoms and debris. These few important tasks will in themselves significantly improve your garden’s overall health and general aesthetic appearance.
2. Rake leaves and organic debris – Decaying leaves left on your grass are the perfect environment for mold and fungus to breed – which can be damaging to the health of your lawn.
3. Mulch – A fresh blanket of mulch around trees and shrubs is not only an instant landscape pick-me-up, but it helps your plants retain much needed moisture during the winter dry spells ahead.
4. Aerate the soil – With cooler weather often comes abundance of rain. Among other helpful fall maintenance landscape tips is this – notice areas where water tends to collect or drain poorly. Should you have this trouble, consider aerating the soil in order to improve drainage and thereby get vital moisture to growing root systems.
5. Fertilize the grass – It is important not to fertilize plants later in the season, lest tender new growth be affected by an early frost and thereby weaken or kill your
   

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   plants. However, grass benefits from regular feeding until the temperatures get into the 40s. This will not only keep your lawn beautiful until the last moment but will also help grass green up earlier when the spring weather awakens it! For more information on selecting fertilizers and treatments for your landscape, consult with a professional Main Line landscape designer.
6. Divide plants – Fall is a great time to divide some perennials, bulbs and rhizomes – so you have more flowers to look forward to in the spring!

The performance of your garden will provide plenty of information for you during the growing season about what worked and what didn’t, especially at the end of the season. Assess the results of your work during the year, “…and prepare the garden for next spring. First, take a walk around your garden and look at how all the plants did over the summer. Track successes and failures of individual plants. Identify which plants have outgrown their space and need to be divided.” (hgtvgardens.com) Get your fill of the beautiful outdoors while implementing some fall maintenance landscape tips in your lawn and garden — enjoying the current season and preparing for the future.

While temperatures are dropping at night, there are still many warm hours each day to work fruitfully in your landscaped Main Line property. If your garden did not grow as you had planned, consult with a professional Main Line landscape designer to provide residential landscaping support in preparation for next year. In 2015 Aardweg Landscaping of Newtown Square, PA  received both the  “Best Of Houzz” 2015 award for Customer Satisfaction by Houzz, and the exclusive “Recommended” badge for top rated professionals on Houzz. Schedule a complimentary on-site consultation with Aardweg Landscaping by calling 610-355-0703, or send an email using the website contact form.