Prepping Your Yard for Spring - What Does a Spring Cleanup Consist Of?

Last Updated: April 17, 2024

Spring is a time of growth and change. It’s also the perfect opportunity to tidy up your property after the long winter and ensure your yard is healthy and beautiful. A spring cleanup will get your yard in excellent shape for the upcoming season.

At The Grounds Guys®, we are spring cleanup pros. We’ll take you through all the steps of the spring cleanup landscaping process so you will know what your yard needs when winter ends!

What Is a Yard Spring Cleanup?

In many parts of the United States, winters are harsh. Snow, ice, and cold temperatures will put your yard into hibernation. By the time spring comes, it will be begging for some attention.

That’s what a spring cleanup delivers. It is designed to revitalize your property, including your lawn and garden, and prepare your landscape for the blooming season ahead.

Spring cleanup landscaping includes:

• Pruning trees and shrubs
• Cleaning up debris
• Lawn maintenance
• Reseeding or sodding
• Sprinkler and hose checkup
• Mulch installation

Pruning Trees and Shrubs

Spring is an ideal time to prune your trees and shrubs to get rid of dead, diseased, or damaged branches. Pruning is also useful in thinning out overcrowded branches and improving the shape and appearance of your greenery. Additionally, judicious pruning can even stimulate growth by removing unproductive limbs.

When pruning or trimming, always use sharp pruners to make clean cuts. This will help your tree or shrub heal properly. Remove dead or damaged branches first, then thin out overcrowded branches. Be careful not to prune too enthusiastically. Removing too many branches can harm your tree or shrub.

Cleaning Up Debris

Remove dead leaves, loose twigs, branches, and other debris throughout your yard that may have fallen during the winter months. You’ll also want to dethatch your lawn to get rid of that layer of dead grass that has accumulated over winter. Dethatching will improve the soil’s ability to absorb water, oxygen, and important nutrients.

Dispose of damaged or dead plants that didn’t survive the winter, then pull any weeds that have sprouted in your garden.

Lawn Maintenance

Spring is also a great time to perform tasks like weeding, fertilization, and aeration. These lawn care projects will help rejuvenate your lawn and set it up for health and vitality through the season.

Weeding Your Lawn

Dandelions, chickweed, henbit, and other weeds often sprout in the spring. Now is a great time to put down some pre-emergent herbicides to stop them in their tracks. If you already notice weeds in your lawn, choose a post-emergent herbicide instead.

Fertilizing Your Lawn

After the long winter, your lawn desperately needs an energy boost, especially as it comes out of dormancy. Fertilizing your lawn will give it the primary nutrients your grass needs to grow, including nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. Fertilizers also improve the quality of your soil over time and help your lawn resist disease and drought.

Aerating Your Lawn

Over time, your soil can become compacted, which makes it difficult to absorb oxygen and nutrition. Lawn aeration is the best way to alleviate soil compaction.

Lawn aeration is a relatively simple process, but doing it right usually requires using a core aerator, which punches tiny holes in the turf while removing small pieces. The process allows your lawn to breathe by opening up the top few inches of turf and soil, enabling air and water to circulate more freely throughout the root system. It also helps break up dense soil that can prevent your lawn from thriving and growing uniformly. The small pieces of the core that are removed are left on the lawn surface. They’ll break down over a few weeks and serve as food for the lawn and soil.

Wondering when to aerate your lawn? If you have a cool-season grass like fescue, bluegrass, or ryegrass, aerate once or twice a year in early spring or fall. For warm-season grasses like Bermuda, zoysia, or St. Augustine, we recommend aeration in late spring or early summer.

Reseeding or Adding Sod

A difficult winter can lead to brown or bare patches in your lawn. Now is the time to put down new grass seed. Begin by raking the soil in the spots you want to reseed to loosen the top layer of dirt. Spread a fertilizer on the area, then sprinkle grass seed into the dirt. Perform another round of raking so that the seeds get plenty of soil contact. Water the area regularly to keep the newly seeded areas moist.

Or, if you want a speedier option than waiting for grass seeds to grow, install sod. It’s usually a good idea to hire a professional landscaping company, like The Grounds Guys, to install new sod.

Sprinkler and Hose Checkup

Over a long winter, sprinkler pipes and hoses can crack, joints can loosen, and heads can become clogged or misaligned. That’s why it’s important to carefully check all your hoses and sprinklers. Connect each hose to check for leaks or holes and ensure the fittings don’t leak under pressure. For sprinkler systems, run the system through a normal cycle, and make sure all the heads pop up and provide proper coverage (as in, no geyser-like leaks).

You may be able to patch hoses with holes or leaks, but replacing them may be the only option for more extensive damage. You can also try to clean clogged sprinkler heads before replacing them. If you notice wet areas of the lawn that never seem to dry, that could indicate an underground pipe is damaged. We recommend working with a professional landscaping company with experience in yard drainage solutions. Digging near irrigation pipes in your yard could cause even more damage, if you aren’t careful.

Mulch Installation

To give your landscape that something extra, add a layer of fresh mulch to your garden beds, tree rings, and other designated areas. Mulch looks great and can help visually separate different areas of your landscape. It also helps your soil retain water and suppresses weeds.

The Grounds Guys Make Spring Cleanup Easy

Achieving and maintaining a beautiful yard is one of the many joys of owning a home. But such an achievement doesn’t come without investing a lot of time, energy, and effort. Spring cleanups require a decent amount of work to ensure your lawn and landscape are ready for the coming season.

If you would rather spend your time doing other things but still want a property that others will admire, reach out to The Grounds Guys nearest you and request a free estimate. We are your full-service lawn maintenance resource. We do it all, from spring cleanup landscaping to pruning trees and shrubs to lawn aeration, yard drainage solutions, and more! Learn how our Neighborly Done Right Promise™ sets us apart from other lawn care and landscape companies.

Ready to get your property in shape for spring? Contact us today!