Essential Tips for Winter Landscaping & Lawn Care in Amherst
Winter is officially here, and there is no more waiting! It’s the ideal time to kick-start your winter landscaping & lawn care in Amherst.
For some, the cold season marks the ideal time to relax and ditch all worries about lawn and landscaping services — and it’s somewhat true.
But what many are not aware of is — winter is the perfect time to prep your yard for the upcoming growing season. If you start caring for your lawn in the winter, things will be easier for the spring.
So, if you are all in to give your yard the care and maintenance it deserves for the winter months, this is the list for you. Here you will find 8 indispensable tips for landscaping & lawn care in Amherst to prepare your lawn to embrace the upcoming with greenery and vitality.
7 TIPS FOR WINTER LANDSCAPING & LAWN CARE IN AMHERST
Tip 1: Clear up your yard
A major part of winter lawn care is keeping your lawn clean. All debris and leaves should be raked from your yard. If you leave the waste and the dirt in your lawn, it can smother grasses, invite diseases, insects and pests and damage your lawn.
So, if you haven’t cleaned your lawn yet, it’s time to remove all debris, tools, and toys from your yard. Piling snow on grass for longer periods can damage the grasses and plants in your garden and prevent new growth.
Therefore keeping your landscape clean of all the debris, dirt, and snow will ensure a better growing spring season.
Tip 2: Mulch Garden and Tree Beds
Mulch is an excellent insulator that helps protect the plant roots against frosting. Adding mulch around trees, shrubs and plants provides your landscape with added protection and also helps control soil erosion and water loss.
If you have storage space, the fallen autumn leaves are perfect to be used as mulch as they provide nutrients to your lawn. Putting down around 2-inches of mulch is enough to maintain a uniform soil temperature and reduce water loss.
Putting down around 2-inches of mulch is enough to maintain a uniform soil temperature and reduce water loss.
Tip 3: Fertilize Lawns
If the ground isn’t frozen yet, it is the perfect time to sweeten your acidic soil using a little lime. But before applying fertilizers, be sure to check your soil’s pH level with a soil test.
For this landscaping & lawn care in Amherst, use a spreader to apply the fertilizer. You can also use a “winterizing’ slow-release fertilizer. This step will ensure well-nourished spring shoots.
But be careful not to use too much fertilizer, or it will burn the grasses.
Tip 4: Aerate the Lawn
The soil underneath the grass often becomes very compacted owing to heavy foot traffic and heavy machinery. This leads to many problems, including drying out of the soil, poor nutrient uptake by the grassroots, and significant drainage problems.
Provide your grassroots with extra air and nutrients by aerating your soil. This is the process of making holes into the soil through the turf to allow water and air to penetrate the soil.
You can use a core aerator or use the spikes of the spade to poke holes into the ground to effectively break up the thatch, introduce air in the soil and improve drainage.
If you are not sure how to aerate your lawn, you can always hire landscape and lawn services in Amherst, who will handle the work for you.
Tip 5: Avoid Salt Damage
Here we are talking about winter, therefore using de-icing products during this season is expected. But when it comes to landscaping & lawn care in Amherst during the winter, using these de-icing products can damage the grasses by leaching into them.
This condition obstructs nutrient uptake and creates bare spots on the ground.
One of the crucial landscaping & lawn care in Amherst is to protect your law from these de-icing products, and there are quite a few ways to do it.
- Use products made of sodium chloride alternatives.
- While shoveling the snow, don’t pile the snow on the grass.
- If the salt spray and melt runoff is coming in contact with your grass, be sure to water your lawn thoroughly as soon as the ground temperature is above freezing.
Tip 6: Water your lawn
When it comes to winter landscaping & lawn care in Amherst, we often dismiss the idea of watering the grass and shrubs. During cold weather, the need for watering doesn’t stop.
Failure to keep your greens hydrated during the winter may cause damage by microscopic, cool-season clover mites and the spread of other diseases.
Anytime you experience a water drought and the temperature falls below 40 degrees, water your lawn deeply on that day.
Tip 7: Protect your Young Trees
In winter, animals often take shelter in the bark of trees. To avoid such situations, wrap wire mesh around the base of young trees to stop roaming animals from fretting on the bark during the winter.
Bottom Line
Landscaping & lawn care in Amherst during the winter season gives you a luscious lawn for the upcoming spring. Though most lawn and landscaping care take place between spring and fall, winter is an excellent time to accomplish various landscaping tasks like aerating, seeding, watering, mowing, raking, and wedding. Though it can be overwhelming for some, the efforts will be worth it.
If you want to prepare your lawn through the winter for spring but are unwilling to understand the above-mentioned landscaping & lawn care in Amherst activities by yourself — no worries. Get in touch with the expert landscape and lawn services in Amherst of Amherst Landscaping and let the landscape professionals take care of your lawn through the winter months.
