Gardening is more than just planting and weeding. Proper garden maintenance keeps your entire yard looking fresh and welcoming year-round. Regular maintenance also prevents pest infestations and controls plant-based illness to keep your garden healthy. Learn the steps you need to follow and the garden equipment required to keep your yard beautiful no matter the season.
Identifying Your Plants
Plant information and care tips are often included when buying new plants. But if you moved into a new residence, you may not know how to care for the plants already there. It’s hard to know how to care for a plant if you don’t know anything about it. Once you identify the plant species in your garden, you can research how to take care of them online. Some plants require specific soil acidity levels, while others need more shade than the sun to thrive. You should know how big the plant will grow when it matures and how often it needs to be pruned, trimmed, and watered.
Younger plants with less established root systems need more protection and care than older plants. You may need to place cages around young plants to protect them from being eaten by animals and may need to cover them against inclement weather. Young plants may need watering and other care more often until they mature.
Watering and Weeding Tips
Watering and weeding are essential parts of your garden maintenance. If you live in a rainy or wet environment, you need to water your plants less than in drier climates. Overwatering plants can stress their roots and make them more susceptible to plant diseases like mold and root rot. Try to limit your watering to once or twice per week unless you’re dealing with drought conditions or a soil moisture meter reads extremely dry.
Weeding is a time-consuming part of garden maintenance. Weeds are any unwanted plant that starts growing in your garden. Often seeds from other plants drop and grow in new areas you don’t want them in. Plant seeds can also be carried into your garden by the wind or animals.
Weeds don’t directly harm your other plants, but they are unsightly and can remove vital nutrients from the soil crucial for plant growth. Removing unwanted plants from your bushes, flower beds, and lawn regularly keeps your garden free of weeds.
Weeding while the unwanted plants are just sprouting or small is easier than waiting until they grow larger. Smaller root systems on younger weeds take less effort to pull out, and there’s a smaller chance part of the root gets left behind for the weed to regrow later. Putting mulch down around your plants can help prevent weeds from growing. Mulch also acts as a protective barrier on the soil, helping keep the soil moist and protecting plants from insects and pests. You may need to water and weedless if you add mulch to your garden every year.
Understanding Trimming vs. Pruning and Shearing
Trimming, pruning, and shearing are all forms of removing part of the plant, but each technique uses different methods with a particular goal in mind. Trimming and pruning plants will remove dead plant matter to encourage plant growth. These techniques are also used to remove plant overgrowth and thin out the plant to expose it to more air and light. This can involve pruning dead flower blossoms from plants and shrubs or trimming a tree branch off.
Shearing focuses on removing the entire outer layer around a plant. This is done to help shape plants and encourage plant health and growth. The main goal of shearing is to improve the visual appearance of the plant. Shearing is mainly performed on shrubs, bushes, and small ornamental trees. You can speed up your trimming, shearing, or pruning job by using quality tools and trimmers made for garden maintenance.
Take Care of All Your Outdoor Spaces
Maintaining your lawn, deck, patio, and any other outdoor space is just as important as taking care of your garden. Cracks in your patio or broken pool tiles distract from the natural beauty of your yard. You can make any maintenance job easier by using knee pads and tile tools to help level, cut, or grout your outdoor spaces. Keep your yard looking tidy by mowing your lawn as needed. This may mean mowing more than once a week when grass growth is at its peak, usually around late spring or early summer. You can also apply fertilizer, weed, and pest control products to your lawn to keep it looking its best. Consider hiring a lawn care service to mow your yard if you don’t have the time to keep up with it.
Make a Seasonal Maintenance Plan
Once you understand the needs of your plants and the tasks needed to keep up with your garden, you can make a maintenance plan based on the season. Your garden may require more frequent maintenance during the spring and fall, while it takes less time and effort to maintain it during the summer or winter.
Spring garden maintenance
Spring is a great time to plant new bushes, flowers, or trees in your garden. Before planting anything new, take time to clear out dead plants and materials from the winter. Put down fresh mulch and remove weeds. It’s an excellent time to trim and shear plants before they start growing for the season.
Summer landscaping
The heat of summer may require you to water your plants more often. Consider setting up an automatic watering system with a timer set for early morning to ensure your plants are well hydrated. You may need to prune plants or flowers to keep them blooming through the summer months. Continue to check for weeds and remove them from your garden promptly.
Fall garden and lawn care
You need to clean out your flower beds and landscaping before winter. Keep them clear of weeds and leaves that have piled up. Fall is another good time to trim back shrubs and trees. This redirects nutrients to the plants’ root systems to support healthier growth the following year. It’s also the perfect time to plant any bulbs like daffodils you want to flower next spring.
Winter maintenance
If you live in a cold or snowy climate, prepare your plants for the environment. Wrapping younger and more delicate plants in burlap or using hardcovers over them protects them from harsh conditions such as snow, ice, and below-freezing temperatures. Winter is the perfect time to plan for your garden in the spring or create an indoor seed starter setup.
Keep Your Garden Beautiful Year-Round
Garden maintenance can be challenging and time-consuming for people who live a busy lifestyle. But, creating a maintenance schedule for each part of your garden for every season ensures your plants and trees grow healthy and strong, improving your house’s curb appeal and creating a relaxing green space.
