Do you have an end of the summer yard maintenance schedule? It’s important to whip some things into shape before the first real cold hits. It helps to knock a few things out to get ready for winter. We’ve been catching our breath from finishing up the cabana, and now it’s time to dive into all things yard projects. So today we’re sharing 3 tips to prepare your yard for winter.
As you probably know, we are truly in love with Greenworks 60 volt tools. They’re handy for so many reasons, and we’ve had the entire family using them all summer as we taught them all about yard maintenance { see: 5 tips to get kids involved in yard work.} We simply can’t wait for them to reveal the new residential zero-turn mower. We might all fight over cutting the grass!
3 tips to prepare your yard for winter: Edging
Our first of 3 tips to prepare your yard for winter is one where I {Jamin} always start out strong in the spring, but as summer gets busier, I just don’t take the time to do it. I think this is why it’s my favorite this time of year, because I get a chance to catch up. Much like pressure washing, using our Greenworks edger is full of instant gratification.
I don’t make time for this in the summer, and the grass tends to grow over the sidewalk and other concrete areas, making it an unsightly mess. If I’d just take the time to maintain it, this wouldn’t even be on my list. But did I mention we have a pool? A marg by the pool always wins.
I’m also going to guess the vast majority of you are like me, and let this one slide as well. No? Maybe they should do a study on the laziness level of pool owners in the heat of summer, then.
Either way, this one last edge will last the winter until spring weather wakes the grass back up. Spending a little extra time in late fall to clean up those edges will have a long-lasting effect through the winter.
Would you look at it? Just look at it!
What a difference. It’s like going from a mullet to a business cut. Winning.
3 tips to prepare your yard for winter: Trimming
Since we’re already in the front yard, we might as well pop that 60v battery out of the edger, and into the hedge trimmer. Because switching out their batteries from one tool to the next is so much easier than all things gas.
Confession: I also don’t do this very often, which is why it makes it as #2 on our “3 tips to prepare your yard for winter”. This year, I’m going to blame the lack of use of the hedger on building the cabana and sitting by the pool. {Sense the theme here?} I find other things to do instead of yard work. Which is why I’m training the kids and why we use easy, powerful tools like Greenworks, because ain’t nobody got time for gas tool maintenance.
Hedge trimming falls in the instant satisfaction category as well. Have a plan before you get started though, because you don’t want to be the homeowner who thinks he’s Edward Scissorhands… unless you can actually pull it off.
Maybe a great idea for Halloween…
3 tips to prepare your yard for winter: mark your tree limbs
Third on our list of 3 tips to prepare your yard for winter doesn’t keep with our instant gratification theme. It does involve spray paint, though.
We have a lot of trees on our property and we’ve planted even more. With some of the more mature ones, we have some low hanging branches.
Story time: we once sold a house, and the buyers in their inspection request noted that we had “imposing” branches on our one tree, and they wanted us to cut them because they didn’t want to ever have to cut the tree branches on said tree. Bless their hearts. They were young and I guess didn’t know trees don’t actually stop growing.
So tip three: mark your tree limbs. Notice I didn’t say cut them, because you don’t ever want to cut a tree limb when it has leaves still on it. If you do, you increase the risk of infection and trauma to the tree. So if like us, you have some tree limbs that hang a little low this is the time of year, mark them while they’re full of leaves. If you wait until the leaves drop the limbs won’t hang as low and you might not trim everything you want.
So we simply mark where we want to cut them with a little red spray paint and then once the leaves fall, we can come back with a pole saw to trim them up.
Generally, the best time to trim them is in January.
So these are our three tips to prep your yard for winter! These are some things people sometimes don’t think about, and we hope this helps you get ready with a little work out of the way to prep your yard.
If you’re still using gas power tools or if you just want a laugh, check out our “how to winterize your tools” video.
Have an inspired day!
{We partnered with and are sponsored by our good friends at Greenworks for this post. For more info on our branded content please visit our disclosure page.}
Ivory says
Great tips, thank you. However, because in January we usually have trees filled with snow, and freezing cold temperatures, I don’t think cutting tree limbs during that time will work for us.