Our Blog

How to Prepare Your Yard for Spring

March 31, 2022
Published by Garrette Custom Homes

Spring is on its way, even if it doesn’t always feel like it. It’s just a few days away, which means you need to think about how you start to prepare and maintain your lawn and garden in your new homes in Bremerton WA. Even if you’re waiting to move into your new home, it’s a good idea to know what you’ll need to do to get your new yard healthy and prepared to look its best.

Start off by getting rid of any debris, be it leaves, twigs, or anything that can get in the way of your fertilizer. Rakes are great as they get rid of debris but also lift some of the existing grass to help aerate and allow more access to the ground itself. However, air blowers are also good, though maybe don’t do it first thing in the morning to avoid annoying your new neighbors!

Now it’s time to take care of some preventative measures. You definitely want to lay down some fertilizer to feed your grass. Some people choose to include a pre-emergent to stop crabgrass, which shows up during the hottest months. However, what you’re fighting during March through May is poa annua, or annual bluegrass. Your best bet is prevention, as it’s an annual grass that is hard to get rid of as the seeds are low and generally missed by mowers and can spread. Look for a pre-emergent that can focus on the poa annua without necessarily killing your whole lawn. You should still probably look for a pre-emergent and/or post-emergent that helps with crabgrass, too. Use them on your lawn, then six to eight weeks later, reapply fertilizer and pre-emergent products. At this point, consider adding in a broader weed killer. Many lawn care brands offer a combination of pre-emergent and weed killer in one application, which is cheaper and easier.

You may be tempted to let the grass grow tall after being dormant during the winter, but it’s actually best to keep it relatively short, mowing every five days to allow the roots to reproduce properly. Do this for the first six weeks of spring, depending on the weather, of course.

If your yard has just a few brown patches, don’t seed yet. Let the fertilizer do its job and hopefully you’ll start to see some grass start to sprout. Planting seeds will be fruitless as the weed killer and pre-emergent will stop them from growing. If you’re dealing with large areas of brown, your best bet is sodding.

Now is a good time to check your trees and make sure they’re healthy and don’t have any dead limbs. You really need to get up there to check, so you may want to hire an expert to come out and remove any dead limbs, which can be dangerous and cause property damage. Ideally, you should call an expert out every three years to look over all of your trees to check for possible disease or to give them a trim that can prevent damage to your home, wires, etc.

Finally, once your yard is cleaned up and treated, make sure you edge out your beds, trim bushes that have gotten out of hand, and put down new mulch. Ideally, go for hardwood bark mulches over ground wood chips that have been dyed brown, as the hardwood looks better and lasts longer.

With these tasks done, the yards of your new homes in Bremerton WA should be ready to welcome spring and summer and help make your home look even better! Making an effort with the maintenance early on can help your yard look its best in the coming months without excessive care so you can enjoy it fully.

Categorized in: Holiday Tips, Home Decor Tips, home inventory, Market Tips, New Home Tips, Selling Tips

This post was written by Garrette Custom Homes