As your yard has four seasons of rest and growth and rest, do you have four seasons of landscaping maintenance? Of course, what’s required will depend on the season and the kind of plant or tree you’re planning to maintain. 

These checklists for maintaining your landscape will make the task easy to complete, regardless of what’s in your yard.

Let’s begin!

  • Spring Landscape Maintenance

Spring Lawn Care

  • Use an early spring fertilizer for lawns when the snow has dissipated.
  • Repair dead patches.
  • When crabgrass is a problem, you should apply a preemergent herbicide when forsythia is blooming in your area.
  • Revive lawns that are weak with dethatching and Aerating.

The Spring Trees, Shrubs, and Groundcover Maintenance

  • Remove winter trunk protection and old mulch. Add mulch around the base of trees and plants.
  • Prune and tidy up dead, damaged, or diseased branches.
  • Prune summer-flowering shrubs.
  • Rake, fertilize, and mow groundcovers.
  • After a dry winter, take the time to water and rehydrate your plants.
  • Get rid of dead plants, such as groundcover or bushes.

Spring Garden Maintenance

  • Enhance the soil with organic material.
  • Plant cool-season flowers and plants.
  • Clean up old mulch and refresh.
  • Plant roses and prune them.
  • Divide overcrowded perennials.
  • Grow fruit trees and berry plants; fertilize them for a few weeks before flowering by feeding the fruit tree plant with food.
  • Cut back vines over trellises and arbors.
  • Cut back spring bulb foliage when it begins to yellow.

  • Summer Landscape Maintenance

Summer Lawn Care

  • Mow frequently and when needed. Leave the trimmed lawn and only remove 1/3 of the grass height each time you trim.
  • As summer progresses, the height of mowing increases; taller grass can withstand drought and heat better.
  • Alternate the pattern of your mowing to keep from creating ruts or strips.
  • The lawn should be watered in the morning when required; soak until the lawn receives approximately 1 inch per week.

The Summer trees, Shrubs, And Groundcover Care

  • Weed around trees as needed; add mulch and keep it a few inches away from the tree’s trunks.
  • Always check for any damage caused by insects or diseases.
  • Water the new plants and trees once weekly, soaking the soil to 1 foot.
  • Cut hedges following the first growth flush.
  • Flowers that have faded deadhead.
  • Prune spring-blooming plants like Lilacs when the flowers have faded.

  • Fall Landscape Maintenance

Fall Lawn Care

  • Fall lawn care is simple: Overseed new lawns or areas that require refreshment. Start mid-October in mild winter climates. In cold winter climates, overseeding is done in mid-September.
  • Apply an autumn grass fertilizer on your lawn.
  • Rake is absent whenever required.

The Fall trees, Shrubs as well as Ground Cover maintenance

  • Mulch regularly and water freshly planted conifers.
  • New plants like Holly or oak, as well as beautyberry.
  • Get rid of decayed leaves, fallen crops, and fallen plants off fruit trees.
  • The compost and rake leaves.
  • Cut the rose canes to about a foot from the ground and put them in a soil-covered container (cold temperatures). Wrap the roses’ canes in burlap. Lay the canes in a blanket on the ground, then lay them on top of dirt or mulch.

  • Winter Landscape Maintenance

Winter Lawn Care

  • If your lawn is lush in winter, you can lightly douse the lawn with nitrogen fertilizer in the last week of winter.
  • To ensure desirable winter lawn care, be sure not to walk on it when it’s frozen or has no moisture, and utilize other alternatives in place of salt (sand or cat litter), depending on the situation.

Christmas Trees Shrubs, as well as Ground Cover maintenance

  • If snow and rain aren’t present, you can sprinkle water on freshly established evergreens.
  • Plant naked-root roses as early as you can.
  • Prune fruit trees in the winter months and spray them with dormant oil.
  • Cover trees with tree guards to guard them against rodent harm.
  • Cover delicate foundation plants in burlap.

Basic Care All-Year-Round

If you follow our guidelines for landscape maintenance during the seasons. In that case, it is vital to ensure your garden stays in good condition, like its natural pattern, and ensuring that you take care of your garden throughout the year will make it easier every time one of these seasons arrives. 

Take the time to walk your garden regularly throughout the growing season so that you become familiar with the rhythms of your garden and can detect any changes that are unusual or issues. 

Perform simple tasks when needed, such as watering as needed, pruning or shaping your trees or shrubs, layering pea pebbles to make a quick edge redo, and clearing up branches or debris. 

Most importantly, spotting pests, insects, and plants or diseases in your flowers at the moment they occur instead of looking for the “right time” to complete cleanup or weeding out keeps your garden in good shape all year.