Seasonal garden maintenance services are very important. Whether you do it yourself or hire a professional, what you do in June can greatly influence how your lawn will look in January. Seasonally maintaining your yard year round ensures that your garden, shrubs, and landscape stay healthy and looking good all year.
Summer Garden Maintenance Checklist
Mulching
Applying a good layer of mulching in the late spring/early summer is more than simply an aesthetically; the mulching protects the soil from heat, suppresses weeds, and helps to retain moisture during the hotter summer months.
Weeding
Weeds are not only unsightly nuisances peeking out in your garden; they can also be very disruptive to plants and flowers. Weeds are competitive – that means that they are fighting for sunlight, water, and soil nutrients, often at the expense of carefully chosen landscaping. Professional landscapers will include weeding as part of your regular garden maintenance services.
Fertilizer
Fertilizer provides many essential nutrients to your garden, however you want to be careful not to over or under fertilize. Most gardens do well with 2-4 fertilizer applications per growing season, or roughly every 6-8 weeks.
Summer Annuals
Early summer, once the temperatures overnight begin to warm, is the right time to add a pop of colour to your garden with carefully selected summer annuals. If you are not using professional garden maintenance services, make sure to select the right type of annuals for the amount of sun or shade in your garden.
Fall Perennials
To ensure that your fall perennials make it through the summer and bloom nice and tall in the fall, it is important to trim an inch or two off the top. You can also take this time to deadhead – remove any spent blooms – from your currently blooming annuals and perennials; this will encourage new flowers to bloom.
Irrigation
Making sure that your yard gets enough water is vital to a healthy lawn and is a very important part of garden maintenance services. If you don’t have an automatic irrigation system, make sure that you are giving your garden enough water at the rights times – early in the day or late in the afternoon, to avoid intense summer heat.
Lawn Mower
During the summer months, many professionals in garden maintenance change the setting to allow grass to grow a little longer. This additional length creates healthier grass and helps to retain soil moisture.