Year-round landscape maintenance is essential to achieve a well-manicured property that packs plenty of curb appeal. Routine landscape maintenance identifies and addresses issues before they gain momentum and require costly intervention. Year-round landscape maintenance also utilizes each season for the completion of particular tasks that will improve the health of the landscape as a whole. For example, early winter is an excellent time to prune plants and promote their growth in the spring. In fact, neglecting your landscape in this stage of winter will only result in extensive clean-ups and disease treatments. Hiring a professional landscaping company, such as Nature’s Accents Landscape Services, Inc. will ensure that your landscape is cared for all year round so that it never requires damage control. Here are a few tasks that typically fall within an early winter maintenance schedule in Bethlehem, PA.
Related: Lawn Care: Things You Need to Do in the Backyard This Fall
Warding off winter weeds
Although weeding is largely a chore for the summer, there are various species of weeds that continue to grow into the winter. Weekly fall and winter maintenance will keep these cold-season weeds under control so that you aren’t met with an overwhelming weeding job in the spring. Winter weed control is also essential to protect your delicate annuals from being smothered and starved. Weeding in the early winter aims not only to keep your landscape looking fresh and manicured, but also works towards protecting your investment in your softscape.
Preventing and controlling disease
Pests and diseases have the ability to survive throughout winter beneath a nourishing and protective canopy of leaf litter, despite layers of snow. Removing leaf debris regularly is just one measure that must be taken to prevent the incubation of diseases during the winter. A Nature’s Accents landscaper will also inspect your plants regularly for any signs of disease. Once an infected plant has been identified, they will be able to contain the spread of disease and prevent any further damage. This is essential to enter spring with a lush, beautiful landscape rather than a blank slate that requires replanting.
Pruning plants
Trees and shrubs are dormant during the winter and this is the perfect time for hard pruning. Pruning your trees and shrubs can rejuvenate them and give them the room to sprout new, healthy growths once they wake up. Pruning also rids plants of any diseased and dying limbs that only weigh them down and make them vulnerable. Winter pruning also plays a role in maintaining the aesthetic appeal of your landscape. It serves to scale down shrubs and trees so that they grow more uniformly, or to various sizes, depending on what you desire for your landscape.
Mowing and fertilization
There are various types of cold-season grasses that are commonly found throughout Pennsylvania and you may harbour one or two in your own backyard. Cold-season grass continues to grow and thrive throughout the fall, into early winter. In order to keep your landscape looking presentable, you will need to schedule regular mowing until any cold-season grass becomes dormant once again. It will be beneficial to your lawn to apply a slow-releasing fertilizer after the last mowing of the season. A single dose of winter fertilization will simply nourish and strengthen any roots that haven’t gone completely dormant, giving them a head-start in the next growing season. Winter fertilization can be tricky, however, as the timing and soil properties need to be just right. Achieve peace of mind by entrusting an experienced landscaping company with the logistics of winter fertilization.
