It’s hard to believe that Summer is behind us and we need to start thinking about the Winter. Now is the time to start getting your yard and landscaping ready for the cold months. Winterizing landscaping around your home now will prevent headaches when the weather gets nice again. You need to keep your landscaping looking great to have truly beautiful outdoor entertainment areas.

A lot of damage can occur during the winter if steps aren’t taken to prevent the harsh weather from impacting your yard. Make sure that wooden surfaces, like patios and decks, are sealed, painted, or coated. This will prevent snow and ice from damaging the wood. Concrete surfaces should be prepared, too. Make sure that cracks are filled and that the surface is sealed. This will protect the surfaces not just from water damage, but it will be protected from salt and other de-icing materials.

Protect Your Pipes

If you have an irrigation system, you should have a landscaper, like Outdoor Innovations, prepare the pipes for the winter. Even a little water inside can freeze and damage the plumbing. Make sure hoses are disconnected from faucets and sprinkler systems are shut off. If you have an outdoor kitchen, you should make sure that the plumbing for that system is also winterized.

Many people have outdoor living spaces or outdoor entertainment areas and those take care to keep them looking nice, also. Outdoor furniture should be covered or stored in a shed or other shelter. They may survive the winter, but they will last much longer if they are protected.

Protect Your Plants

Your landscaper will be able to help protect the plants that you have in your landscaping project. They will know the best way to prepare for the winter, giving you some peace of mind that your yard will continue to look as good as it did when it was new. Shrubs and trees that do not lose their leaves need more protection than ones that do. They are more likely to be damaged by heavy snow and high winds. The landscaper can also help get your lawn ready for the oncoming cold. The yard should be raked and cut lower than usual. Once this is done, a winterizer fertilizer should be applied.

Winterizing Landscaping Protects Your Investment

By winterizing your landscaping and yard now, before the snow begins to blow, you will continue having a beautiful oasis in your backyard. Let Outdoor Innovations keep your yard looking great no matter what the season.

Should you rake your yard in the Fall? This is a question many people ask. With the weather turning colder, we care less and less about our lawn. People are tired of mowing and caring for their landscaping and it’s easy to want to forget it for the rest of the season. However it is a season of change for your yard and landscaping as well, and you may be wondering how those leaves are affecting our Quad Cities yards. So what DO you do with those leaves? To rake or not to rake is the question!

Leave Them Where They Fall?

People sometimes leave the leaves that fall from the trees for the same reason they may “mulch” their yard with grass clippings. They think it will provide nutrition for the yard. This may not be the right choice, however, and here’s why. Leaves essentially block the yard from all of the things that it still needs: water, fertilizer, sun. It may be that the leaves block in too much moisture in some cases (however that isn’t the case this year, right Quad Cities?)

For these reasons we don’t think that leaving them is the right choice. Remove the leaves and bag them up (many places in the Quad Cities areas have burn bans, so please pay attention to your local laws on this matter!)

Other Great Reasons to Rake Your Leaves

• Clearing the leaves from landscaping will make it much easier to work on your landscaping come the Spring.
• Bugs and other varmints like to live in those leaves. You can keep them away from your home and foundation by raking them up!
• Don’t forget the gutters! Leaves in your gutters can make water flow over the top of the gutters which can lead to problems for your landscaping around your home and cause water to build up around the foundation of your home as well. That could mean big, expensive foundation problems like leaks, bowing walls or cracks.

For more information contact us at any time. It’s a beautiful time of year, so get out there and enjoy it by cleaning up your yard and landscaping. Pretty soon we’ll be stuck inside and wishing we could get out and rake the yard. Have a great Autumn, Quad Cities!