You work hard throughout spring and summer to keep your yard and garden looking great, but there are a few yard maintenance essentials to put on your fall to-do list too. Follow these tips in the fall to make sure you start the season off right next spring for a yard that’s both healthy and beautiful.

Fall Lawn Checklist

Fertilize

Give your lawn the nutrients it needs now to stay healthy throughout winter and look amazing in spring. According to Consumer Reports, fertilizing in the fall is especially important if you live where there is a long growing season. It also reduces the amount of time that your lawn is dormant and brown.

Trim grass

Grass doesn’t grow as much in fall as it does throughout summer, but it still needs to be trimmed until it stops growing. While it’s best for your lawn to use a higher trimming height on your mower through summer, be sure to lower the height in fall. This helps the ground dry more quickly in spring and also makes leaf collection easier because leaves have less to get stuck on if the grass is short.

Aerate

To help ensure your lawn can use the fertilizer and water you give it, aerate before the first frost so that nutrients can get to the roots of your grass. Aerating simply involves making small holes in or removing small cores from the lawn. This Old House suggests using a garden fork if you have a small yard or a walk-behind aerator for bigger yards.

Leaf removal

Whether raking or using a leaf blower, gathering leaves on a plastic tarp makes transporting them to your curb or composter much easier. Leaves are excellent for composting because they are carbon-rich. Over the winter, make sure to flip your leaf pile weekly to aerate. Earth Easy recommends adding grass clippings , which are nitrogen-rich compost activators. Create layers of grass clippings and leaves to get the right carbon-nitrogen ratio.

Fall Garden Checklist

Repair hardscaping installations

Fall is the perfect time to fix, add, or replace sidewalks, rock formations, pavers, fountains, and retainer walls. HomeAdvisor recommends stone for hardscape features because it is relatively inexpensive to install, comparatively easy to maintain, and blends well with most landscapes.

Cut back and divide perennials

Fall is the perfect time to divide perennials to make the most of your garden. This also gives you an opportunity to rearrange if certain plants would do better in a different spot. Most perennials should also be cut back, especially any parts that are diseased. These cuttings can be added to your compost along with the leaves and grass clippings.

Plant bulbs and seasonal annuals

While you’re trimming perennials and removing summer annuals, add some color back into your garden by planting seasonal annuals like pansies, mums, and decorative cabbages. You can also plan ahead for spring by planting spring bulbs up to the first frost.

Dig and store summer bulbs

If you live in a cold climate where summer bulbs won’t survive the winter, dig those up now and store them for next year. Better Homes and Gardens recommends keeping them in peat moss or sand, in a spot that’s cool but frost-free.

Water

Make sure your lawn and garden both get a good watering. This includes grass, seasonal annuals, evergreens, and shrubs. It’s especially important to water evergreens so they don’t suffer from dehydration over the winter.

Compost and mulch

If you still have rich compost from the season, add some to gardens now to go ahead and enrich them before it frosts. If your mulch is looking a little shabby, you can “fluff it up,” according to House Beautiful. This process is officially called turning the mulch and it reduces the need to add fresh mulch in the fall. If you have planted any new trees or shrubs this season, they need a good layer of mulch to protect them from the upcoming cold weather.

With the temperatures getting cooler and beautiful color appearing on leaves, fall is a wonderful time to get outside and check off your yard and garden to-do list. When spring comes and everything returns to life, you’ll be glad you made the effort now to keep your yard and garden healthy year round.

Photo credit: Pexels

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