Fall Cleanups

The fall can be one of the prettiest times of year.  When you look around at all the colors, it’s easy to forgive your yard for also becoming a maintenance nightmare for a couple of months.

Cleaning up leaves and tree debris can take up a lot of time but it is essential to keeping your lawn healthy.  A small pile of leaves or pine needles can kill the grass underneath it if’s left unchecked for too long.  Fall is also the time to weed out the mulchbeds, dethatch your lawn and aerate.  Getting rid of the extra weeds, soil and dead grass can help strengthen the plants and trees in your yard.  After a whole season of walking and mowing, your lawn can become compacted.  Aeration and dethatching helps more water, air and important nutrients get to your lawn’s roots.  Maximize the benefits of your fall fertilizer by aerating and removing thatch buildup.

Fall is a good time to perform touch-up pruning on your shrubs and trees.  Before they settle in for winter, remember to heavily water your trees and shrubs one last time to help keep them hydrated during the long winter months.  Anytime before the ground freezes will work.

The fall is also a great time for planting.  Plant your spring bulbs now and you can be sure your tulips and daffodils will come up in the spring.  It’s important to keep an eye on weather trends, though.  A late fall warm spell could cause the bulbs to sprout early, while planting them after it’s too cold means they may not properly root.

Since you won’t be needing your gardening tools in the winter, the fall is the perfect time for a little preventive maintenance.  Take a few minutes to clean off excess dirt and debris from your lawn tools before you store them away for winter.  We also recommend applying a little oil on the metal parts to prevent rusting while they are in storage over the winter.

Remember, you don’t have to do all the yard work yourself!  Call Matt’s Landscaping today for a free estimate and see what we can do for you this fall.

Tree & Shrub Planting

Many people think that fall is the end of the growing season and therefore it must not be a good time to plant trees and shrubs, but the fall is actually an ideal time to plant.

In fact, up to six weeks before the yearly frost sets in is a perfect time to plant trees and shrubs in your yard.  Fall begins with the autumn equinox in late September.  Generally, in New England, this time of year brings, cooler, wetter weather.  You may notice more dew on your lawn in the morning.  As a result, a recent planting requires less watering by you because nature takes care of business for you.  You will still need to water, of course, but you can enjoy a relaxed schedule.  During the harsh summer months, a lot of the water you put down is lost to evaporation.  In fall, water evaporates less and the roots get a chance to absorb more, which creates an ideal situation for a tree or shrub which has been recently planted.  During the fall, photosynthesis decreases (because of shorter days) and the plant itself does not have to work as hard to stay alive.  Although the air is cool, the soil stays warmer for longer, encouraging growth in your tree’s root system.  In addition, the tree’s shoots are starting to go dormant, so it can concentrate it’s growth below ground.  All these things add up to a perfect time to plant trees and shrubs.

Traditionally, trees planted in the fall are better equipped to deal with the heat and drought of summer.  They will also have a head start on growth over any trees and shrubs planted in the spring.

Call Matt’s today for a free estimate and see what we can do for you this fall!

Planting Takes Patience

The past winter was the mildest we have had in years and, as a result, spring seems to be coming early.  The leaves are coming out on the trees about a month in advance.  Grass is no longer dormant and is beginning to grow weeks ahead of schedule.  However, even with all these signs of spring, we need to remember that we should still follow the same planting schedules as we always have.

When we are getting seventy and even eighty degree days in the middle of March, the temptation to start planting annuals or seeding our vegetable gardens can be too much.  But, even though we are seeing signs of an early spring, it still doesn’t mean that cold weather can’t make a comeback.  In April of 1997, we had a snowstorm that shut down most local businesses and schools.  Nature rarely looks at the calendar when it comes to growing plants, but we should.  Recent warm weather gave way to extreme cold nights and any plantings that are not able to withstand a frost will still wither and can even die prematurely regardless of how warm it was during the day.  History has almost always shown that no matter what the daily weather is like, you should still follow your normal planting schedules.

In spite of the warm days, our nights have recently been in the thirties and even twenties.  Flowers and vegetables, especially those raised in a greenhouse, simply can’t withstand that kind of cold.  Typically, New England’s weather has been historically OK for planting between the second and third week of May.  Even though we’ve been blessed with a mild winter and a seemingly early spring, you should still wait to plant your flowers and vegetables… for their sake.