Do you know what Football season starting means to a Gainesville landscape company? Fall is on the way! As fall weather moves into North Central Florida, your Gainesville landscaping growth will start to slow down. Grass will grow more slowly and hopefully the weeds will too! As usual, there are some garden chores that need to be tackled at this time of year. These chores will help clean up the landscape you abandoned during the hot summer months (totally understandable) and get everything neat and tidy so that you can relax the rest of the fall and winter months.
1. REVIVE ORNAMENTAL GRASSES Do you have ornamental grasses in your landscape? This is a great time of year to prune them back if they are looking bad. If they are still flowering, or getting ready to, make sure you wait until they are done. If they need to be pruned back, the easiest way to do this is to use hedge pruners or large clippers. Cut the grass back to about eight inches high. You may also wish to divide up your grasses at this time of year. After you cut the grass back, use a sharp shovel to divide up the grass. This is a great way to create more plants for the yard or share plants with friends or neighbors. 2. DIVIDE PLANTS In addition to dividing your ornamental grasses; there are other plants that you may wish to divide. Perennials such as liriope, African iris, flax lily, bulbine, and herbs such as rosemary and tarragon are easy to divide. You may want to cut them back to the ground and then divide the clump into smaller sections using a sharp shovel. 3. MOVE PLANTS THAT HAVE OUTGROWN THEIR SPACE If you have let things get a little out of control over the summer months with a lack of professional Gainesville Lawn Maintenance, now is a great time to move plants that have outgrown their allotted space or have self-seeded themselves and created a crowded landscape. Find a new spot for the plant that has more room than its current location.You want to find a spot that will allow your plant to spread without having to continually prune it during the growing season. This may be a great time to create new mulched beds or expand existing mulched beds in your yard. By dividing and moving plants you may be able to create new planting areas for free by using plants you already have, or consider doing a plant exchange with your friends or neighbors using the plants you have divided or removed. 4. MULCH INSTALLATION FOR LANDSCAPE BEDS As you clean up the plants in your mulched beds, you may find that you need to re-mulch. Remember that you need to have three to four inches of mulch in your Gainesville mulch beds. This will help keep down weeds, reduce erosion, and keep the soil moist. If you find that you need to re-mulch, choose a by-product mulch such as pine bark, pine straw, eucalyptus, melaleuca, oak leaves, or compost. The addition of mulch will also help create a clean and neat look in the mulched beds that you have worked so hard to clean up. 5. PLANT GAINESVILLE TREES AND SHRUBS After you have cleaned up, divided, and pruned your way through the landscape, you may find that you want to add more trees and shrubs to your yard. Fall is a great time to plant trees and shrubs in Gainesville, Florida. Choose plants that are the appropriate size for your yard and utilize local plant lists, such as those available from the Florida Yards & Neighborhoods program.Take advantage of the cooler fall temperatures to clean up your landscape, and remember to follow the principles of Florida-Friendly Landscaping while doing so.