Summer is swiftly ending, and September will be here before you know it. Take a little time to prepare your home’s landscaping before heading out to get the first pumpkin-spiced latte of the season. Autumn is a season of brilliant hues, and it’s ideal for spending mornings and nights out in your yard, drinking something warm and covered up in a light jacket. Your yard may be transformed into an autumn sanctuary with a few terrific landscaping ideas.
Fall Foundation
The first thing you should know about autumn landscaping is to concentrate on colors, accents, and textures. Even the most minor places may seem spacious, with a few strategically placed huge bushes and tiny trees. Focus on stacking trees and plants to create the illusion that your yard extends for kilometers. Japanese maples are ideal for this situation.
Planting a few evergreens along the perimeter of your yard is also a brilliant idea. They’re fantastic for seclusion and provide a rich background for the rest of your environment. Regarding evergreens, one advice is to choose ones that will grow to the appropriate height for your lawn and garden area.
Give Your Lawn One Last Cut
Continue mowing your grass until it no longer grows. If your grass grows all year, maintain it approximately three inches tall, so there is enough surface area for the sun to strike.
Test Your Soil
This is an excellent season to plant grass seed, but the soil should be examined before assessing pH and nutrient availability. Sending a soil sample to a specialist for testing costs approximately $15, but it’s well worth it since soil plays such an essential part in landscape design. Once any deficiencies have been addressed, it is time to aerate and seed the areas strained by the summer heat.
Fluff Up The Mulch
It’s formally known as turning the mulch. Fluffing it up gives flowerbeds a new appearance and reduces (or even eliminates) the need for more fresh mulch. If you add additional items, maintain the pile between two and three inches thick. Anything extra might serve as a haven for insects.
Paint Your Home
Regarding landscaping, it’s tempting to concentrate just on your yard. However, autumn is a fantastic time to give the outside of your house a new coat of paint, usually costing between $1500 and $3600. If the color on your home is in good condition, consider restoring any areas of chipped paint and repairing your siding, which may cost between $250 and $950. It would be a pity to have beautiful autumn scenery but a house that severely needs a fresh coat of paint.
You may also add some planters or window boxes to your house while you’re at it. Some of the benefits of including such boxes in your landscape design are as follows:
- Adding texture to your home’s exterior
- Colorizing your brick, siding, or colored exterior
- Adding greenery to residences that don’t have a lot of open space
Develop Good Plant Habits
Pay close attention to plant behaviors while selecting plants for autumn landscaping. This entails paying attention to the forms that plants take as they develop. Some are thin and upright, while others have a slight downward curvature. Consider mixing and matching plant behaviors to add interest and exclusivity to your yard.
Repeating plant forms is a great way to give a pattern to your autumn paradise. You might replicate the outlines of higher trees in the backdrop surrounding your yard to better mix the background and foreground. Use repeating plant forms but vary the colors here and there to break up the pattern and create interest. Blue-silver spruce, blue-green pine, and deep green arborvitae are excellent color choices.
Keeping Up Appearances
Even if you appreciate the sight of falling leaves, there is no excuse for not raking them up in your yard. When you walk into your yard, the falling leaves might become slick and endanger you, your family, and your visitors. Make an effort to rake your grass at least once a week.
You should also maintain your pool throughout the lower months of the year. Even if you don’t intend to swim, keeping the chemicals balanced and the water clean of bugs, leaves, and debris is critical.
A Plant for Every Season
Include plants that look excellent in your yard all year to save time and money on landscaping. Excellent examples include:
- Hydrangeas
- Pagoda dogwood
- Fothergilla
- Ninebarks
- Viburnums
Don’t Forget About Hardscaping
This autumn, be sure to allow some space for hardscaping. Walkways, rock formations, pavers, fountains, and stone retainer walls are all excellent choices. If you combine soft and hard landscaping, choose valuable something that provides safety or security and enhances the overall aesthetic of your home. Adding a water foundation to your landscape does two things: it 1) makes you feel more private and 2) blocks off sounds from adjacent roadways. Depending on the design and size, a foundation might cost anywhere from $950 to $4000 to install.
If you need help deciding what form of hardscaping to include, stone is a popular option since it doesn’t need much maintenance and blends with practically any landscape design. That is even better if you discover a stone local to your location. Be bold and use more than one sort of stone to create variation.
Plan Ahead
Consider starting a compost pile before you toss away all the leaves and trash you’re gathering. Compost heaps take up little room and nourish your plants and soil the following year. You may also use grass clippings, vegetable trimmings, tiny twigs and sticks, loose flower petals, and ground leaves.
Spend some time establishing your autumn landscape in your yard before trading in your shorts and flip-flops for coats and boots.
