DIY: Spring Cleaning for Your Garden & Lawn: Part 1

Spring is the perfect time to begin lawn and garden projects!  This article from thegardeningcook.com shows you how to get started.

From thegardeningcook:

These early spring garden projects will get a jump start on your garden and will get you outside too! From lawn care ideas to tips for growing perennials in the spring, i’ve got you covered. I know that in most parts of the country, the ground is still covered with snow, but as any good gardener will tell you, “it’s never too early to start thinking about spring gardening!” Spring is just around the corner and daylight savings on the horizon, so now is the time to think of getting our gardens ready. Are you like me in the late winter?  As soon as the sun starts to shine and the temps go up a bit, I seem to feel that urge to get out there and do something. Many times though, it’s far too early to plant anything. However, there are lots of things that you can do to get ready. 

Get your garden ready now with these early spring garden projects

NOW is the time to get started on some very early spring gardening tasks.  These are my tried and true early spring garden projects that will make sure I get these results year after year.

1. Prepare for early lawn care

This is at the top of my early spring garden projects for a reason.   A lush, green lawn is such an important part of a great garden.  We all enjoy entertaining in the summer, and a wonderful lawn adds so much to the atmosphere of your garden setting.  Early spring is the time to take stock of the condition of your lawn after a winter of it not growing.  It will show what needs to be done to get it ready for spring when you can easily see the problems lurking there. I have a lot of lawn area and the back yard has quite a few weeds growing.  It definitely needs some TLC in the spring. I’ll start by raking my lawn early in the spring to remove dead grown and winter debris.  This brings light as well as air to the soil, which encourages the grass to grow.  Now is the perfect time to care for your lawn.  Don’t wait until the heat of summer hits.  When you are hosting a barbecue party in summer and your lawn is lush and green, you’ll be glad you started now.

2. Clean and repair birdhouses

Some birds visit us all year round here in NC and many really start visiting when the weather starts to turn warm.  Now is the time to check the birdhouses.  Make sure they are firmly mounted. Clean bird feeds and fill them with fresh seed, once they are dry.   Consider creating a pile of nesting materials in your yard where the birds can easily take stuff to make their nests. This little bird house needs a makeover this year.  It belonged to my mother who died last year and I will treasure it once I fix the damaged parts.

Now is the time to clear away the junk

One of my most needed early spring garden projects is cleaning up after winter.  Winter can be hard on a garden.   All sorts of garden debris and other refuse seems to gather everywhere around the yard.

3. Clear away refuse

Check the drainage ditches and walk around your yard to see what can be gathered and put out for garden refuse pick up. Our local authority allows me to put yard debris out every week and I have a whole row of old trash cans just waiting for this job.  Plants and lawns grow best in soil that drains well, so gather up those leaves, gather the weeds, and clean out the drainage ditches!  If you have a compost pile, even better.  I use a rolling compost pile. It is not very pretty, as this picture shows, but it is VERY easy to turn and all that yard refuse will turn into “black gold” that will work miracles in my garden and on my lawns. This pile is just LOADED with rich hummus under all the refuse.  Dumping my winter time yard refuse on this pile makes the clean-up part quite easy.

4. Tend to the bird baths

My bird baths are often discolored by the end of the winter.  They all need a good cleaning and scrubbing and then need to be refilled with water.

5. Think spring bulbs

Many spring bulbs start sending up leaf shoots during some warm winter days and then suffer a bit from a cold snap by getting brown edges to the leaves. The bulbs are just fine, they need the cold before they start sending up the flowers, but you can trim the leaves a bit to tidy things up.   While you are at it, make a sketch of where the spring bulbs are and put it in your gardening planner.  Once they have stopped growing, it will be hard to know where to plant your perennials without a sketch showing you where the bulbs are underground.

6 Check your mulched areas

This job is at the top of my must-dos of early spring garden projects. I have 9 large garden beds so I spend a lot of time (and money) on mulching every year.  And no matter how nicely the mulched areas looked last fall, there are still areas where the mulch has degraded or (it sometimes seems) just plain disappeared!  Add composted leaf mulch to the bare areas so that the weeds that we all know are lurking there won’t be able to grow as easily.

7 Check your outdoor seating areas

Last year, I bought new patio cushions for my seating area which rests under a huge Magnolia tree. By mid-winter, the cushions were a green mess and I honestly thought I would need to throw them away. But I threw them in the washing machine with some spray on stain remover (it took two washes) and they look almost like new.  Note to self:  Next year, put the patio cushions in the shed in the fall!  One of my summer projects for this seating area is going to be to sand the seat and bench and give it a fresh coat of paint in a dark green color. Stay tuned for the transformation.

8 Touch up yard decorations

Of all of my early spring garden projects, this one is my favorite.  I love to add decor to my garden.  Do you have some yard decorations that will need a touch up to look their best for spring and summer?  I have an old mail box that I salvaged from a make-over that I did last summer.  I plan to use to hold my gardening tools, and have a garden decoration too.  It’s very rusty, but will make a great project for early spring when I can’t actually be gardening. I plan to paint it and stencil on the side. It will make a lovely yard decoration when done.

9 Cut back ornamental grasses

I let my Japanese Silver grass get very tall in the winter because it sends up beautiful plums above the plant. But early spring is the time to cut it right now to about 6 inches to encourage lush growth during the spring and summer. If I leave this plant for even a few more weeks, ALL of these fronds will be covering my garden bed.  Now is the time to prune them.

SOURCE: THEGARDENINGCOOK.COM