How to Tidy Up Your Lawn & Garden

Depending on where you live in the US, you may have a lot of work cut out for you keeping your lawn and garden trim and tidy year round. A lush, green lawn is something many of us strive for, but it does take a lot of work to keep it that way.

Whether you need to tidy up leaves in the fall, grass clippings, twigs or branches, or other organic yard waste cluttering up your property, there are a few tips that can help you to get your property to stand out and look beautiful:

Move Aside any Lawn Furniture & Obstructions

If you don’t have the time (or make the time) to keep up appearances for your lawn and garden, you may have a lot of unused lawn furniture or junk cluttering up your property. Before getting to work on the lawn itself, you’ll need to move aside any patio tables, chairs, trampolines, or other items that may be obstructing your yard.

If you’ve got a shed, move everything inside (or as much as you can); otherwise, move them to your patio, garage, or inside the house so that you can get to work tidying up your lawn.

Pluck Weeds & Mow the Lawn

Weeds and other infestations can wreak havoc on an otherwise beautiful lawn, so you’ll need to get down on all fours and start plucking them out. Insect or rodent infestations can be a little more tricky, so you may need to consider whether it’s worth it to hire a lawncare company to do the job for you.

If you’re doing it yourself, make sure you keep a little bucket for all of the weeds you pluck since the seeds or spores can easily drop down into the soil and leave you back at square one in a few weeks or months.

When mowing your lawn, you may be inclined to cut it a little more on the short side to save time and energy. It’s often much healthier to mow higher, since it allows the grass blades to maintain natural shade and protection. Of course, this means more frequent mowing, but nobody said it was easy to maintain a beautiful lawn.

You should also use this opportunity to snip any long branches on any trees in your hard, as well as prune your hedges and bushes. Bundle up any small sticks and keep logs, stumps, and other bulky yard waste separate for later.

Clear Out any Unused Lawn Furniture

Decorating your lawn and garden can make backyard BBQs fun and enjoyable, but you shouldn’t be cluttering up your yard with unused furniture through the four seasons. If you live in a colder climate, take your patio furniture into the garage or into the shed during the winter, for example.

If you’ve got unused lawn furniture or your kids have outgrown their love of the backyard trampoline, for example, you’ll want to disassemble and dispose of these items separately. It can be quite a bit of work dismantling sheds or hauling lawn furniture to the dump, however, which is why it’s often best to call a reputable junk hauler near you with a service such as JunkGator.

Junk haulers can help dispose of bulky items like lawn chairs, patio tables, lanterns, and even disassemble sheds and trampolines. This can save you a lot of time and effort which can then be applied to making your yard look tidy and beautiful again.

Collect & Bundle Yard Waste and Bulky Items

Once you’ve gotten rid of all your unused lawn furniture, you’ll need to find a way to get rid of all of the yard waste. Depending where you live, yard waste removal may be provided for free by your city or county’s sanitation department. Often, they’ll collect bags of grass clippings and bundled twigs and sticks, but again, it depends on your location. Check your city or county website for information on how and when (or even if) they collect yard waste.

If they don’t pick up yard waste, you’ll need to either haul it yourself to the nearest organic waste facility, compost it in your backyard, or burn it (if feasible and legal to do so in your area). Stumps and logs should be ground down with a woodchipper, and the wood chips can make for an excellent natural mulch for your garden.

A convenient and time-efficient way to get rid of yard waste is to hire a junk removal company to do it for you. Local, independent junk haulers often collect yard waste and will dispose of it in an environmentally friendly manner.

Put Together a Plan for Routine Maintenance

Once your yard is all tidied up, it’s important to put together a maintenance plan so that it looks great all year round. Make a habit of frequently mowing, dealing with weeds, mulching, and tidying up any lawn furniture during colder seasons.