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Fall Garden & Yard Prep
Fall Garden & Yard Prep: Setting Your Home Up for Success
Early fall warm weather days often tempt us to keep our gardens going just a little longer, but late September through October is the prime time to prepare your yard for the colder months ahead. Think of it as “winterizing” your home’s curb appeal—a little work now means a smoother, fresher start come spring.
Just like a home needs the right foundation to thrive, your garden and landscape need a strong send-off before winter arrives. Here are a few smart (and surprisingly simple) steps every homeowner should take:
1. Say Goodbye to Summer Veggies
As much as we want those last tomatoes to ripen on the vine, it’s time to let go. Pull spent veggies like tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers, and add them to your compost. Still have green tomatoes? Don’t toss them! You can ripen them indoors by placing them in a paper bag or box.
2. Care for Perennials
Healthy perennials can be left standing; they’ll catch snow and add some winter charm. However, if there are any plants that show disease, they should be removed now to prevent problems next year.
3. Hydrate Before Hibernate
Trees, shrubs, perennials, and even lawns benefit from a good soak before the freeze. A well-watered root system means a healthier comeback in spring.
4. Empty Containers
Ceramic, terra cotta, and clay pots don’t do well in freezing temps. Clean, dry, and store them to prevent cracking.
5. Clean & Store Tools
Wash your garden tools, sharpen blades, and lightly oil metal surfaces to keep rust away. Your future self will thank you when spring planting rolls around. If you accidently left one out and it now has some rust, esteemed Minnesota gardener and writer Mary Lahr Schier has a tip for you. Discover her secret in her article by clicking here.
6. Manage the Leaves
A light layer of chopped leaves can be good mulch, but too many leaves left on your lawn may cause snow mold and damage your grass. Rake or mulch as needed. Keep aside some leaves to use as mulch after the soil freezes.
Why It Matters for Homeowners
Not only does fall yard prep make spring easier, but it also protects your landscaping investment, boosts curb appeal, and helps your home shine year-round. Whether you are thinking of selling next season or just want to love the home you are in, small steps now add long-term value.
So, grab your rake, pull on your cozy sweater, and show your home a little autumn TLC—it’ll pay off in more ways than one!
If you are thinking about selling next season now is the best time to connect with a realtor to help guide you every step of the way, feel free to connect with us. Find our contact details here.
Winterize
Winterize
Have you been outside lately? There has not been a coatless day in WEEKS and the trees downtown are one harsh wind away from officially being bare.
The point is…it’s cold.
We all know the drill here. We put away our summertime flip flops in exchange for wool socks and thick boots. Our tank tops get pushed to the backs of our closets as sweaters emerge. Winter is coming and we are preparing our closets accordingly.
But how are you preparing your home?
It’s hard to imagine failing to maintain the greatest investment we’ve ever made yet every year a shocking number of homeowners fail to do basic winterization tasks. Some don’t even know that they should! To lend a helping hand here are the Top 5 Winterization Tasks you should do every year.
Clean out the gutters
Those beautiful fall leaves we’ve been watching descend so gracefully from the sky are the same ones descending into your gutters. Although that might not mean much now, when the temperature dips down to freezing it can mean a whole lot. Water unable to escape the drains due to fallen leaves expand as it freezes. This can cause gutters to become damaged or pull away from the house. Eventually these become overhead hazards that threaten to fall from above.
Cleaning your gutters may not be fun, but it is vital and pretty easy. Simply grab a ladder, some work gloves, a trash bag, ang get to work! You’ll probably find it goes faster than you ever imagined.
Flush irrigation systems
If you have a sprinkler system for your home, it is of the utmost importance to have the lines professionally blown out before the cold hits! As we talked about with the gutters above, when water freezes it expands. This is bad news for those underground pipes! Frozen water that expands within irrigation pipes can cause pipes to crack or burst destroying your system and your yard. Below are some local companies certified to service irrigation systems:
Precision Plumbing and Backflow Testing | 360-914-0321
Everflow Irrigation | 360-840-4793
GCF Backflow Services | 360-320-9871
Evergreen Landscape & Maintenance | 360-679-2363
King Water Company | 360-678-5336
Cover outside faucets
Going hand in hand with blowing out that sprinkler system is covering ALL outside spigots. BURSTING PIPES! It’s a very real issue that can cause thousands of dollars in property damage. Luckily, covering your pipes can be as easy as going to your local hardware store and picking up one of the below faucet covers. They are extremely easy to install and if you are even a little concerned we have found a helpful video to guide you through!
Fertilize the lawn
Winter months seem to only to bring with them frost and death. Luckily, that doesn’t have to be the story for your lawn. Winter fertilizer helps your grass recover from minerals lost in the scorching summer sun and stock up on the nutrition it needs to withstand the cold winter months. This will prevent it from dying away when spring hits.
However, living on an island brings with it special considerations when it comes to fertilizing your lawn. Traditional fertilizers often contain high amounts of hazardous chemicals such as zinc, lead, cadmium, chromium or sometimes even arsenic. The risk of these chemicals is only elevated with the addition concern of their runoff into the Puget Sound. Living on Whidbey increases this risk drastically even for the most centrally located island properties. That’s why we highly suggest using eco-friendly fertilizers such as Milorganite’s Slow-Release Nitrogen Fertilizer which you can pick up Home Depot today!
Replace weather stripping
Every year countless sums of money are spent on the excess heating required to keep our homes warm in the winter months. But is all that money necessary? You’d be shocked to learn all the different ways in which the sacred warm air inside escapes from your home. Although some of these issues require big solutions like reinstalling insulation in your roof or switching to a better heating system altogether; quite a lot can be done in simply replacing some of your weather stripping around the house!
How long has the weather stripping along your exterior doors been there? Since you’ve moved in, right? Well every time that door opens and closes there is a little more wear to the stripping and after a few hundred passages it’s no wonder it starts to give way.
Replacing weather stripping is easy and relatively cheap! Check it out:
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