Spring is in the air! Daffodils and tulips are beginning to bloom, and the sun is staying out later every day.
It’s time to start making plans for spring picnics, summer cookouts, and exciting warm-weather activities with your favorite people. Is your backyard ready to host the fun?
Here are five backyard items you can cross off your checklist before spring’s outdoor lifestyle gets under way.
Order Summer-Flowering Bulbs and Seeds
Let the March rains drizzle down your windows while you visit your favorite gardening sites on the Internet to order dahlias, irises, and impatiens for the flower beds. Are you putting in a vegetable garden this year? Make sure you’ve got peas, lettuce, cabbage, and spinach ready to go in the ground. Order your seeds (or pick up your transplants) now and you'll be able to have them in the ground with plenty of time to spare.
Weed & Clean
Check your beds for brown stems, leaves, yard debris, and other detritus that has collected over the winter months. Early spring is the best time to trim, rake, weed, prune, mulch, and add fertilizer.
Best of all? This is the perfect checklist item to get the non-gardeners in your family to help with.
Eliminate Pests
Are you offering rent-free space in your backyard to a whole host of vermin who’ve curled up against the wintery chill in your flowerpots, under your shrubs, and behind your trellises? It’s time to track them down and end their stay before they consume your vibrant spring landscape.
While you’re at it, why not wash the hummingbird and butterfly feeders and clean the bird boxes? Some pests are too small to be seen, after all.
Straighten the Hardware
Winter weather can add layers of rust to those beautiful iron posts, as well as rot the wood on your trellises and make once-straight fences start to sag.
Now’s the time to pull out the hammer, nails, rust remover, and other products and go to work. Once the yard’s hardware is ship-shape, you can keep it that way by brushing on a layer of quality wood preservative.
Add New Touches
Your backyard doesn’t have to look the same year after year. Early spring is a great time to freshen the lawn’s look by adding new birdhouses or a fresh specimen of a native plant.
If you were planning to install a large item, such as a shed, swing or playhouse, why not get it in now before hot summer months make outdoor construction unappealing?
While you’re thinking about new additions to the backyard, don’t forget to add contacting your local gardening association to your checklist. The staff or volunteers there can tell you about any new pests or other threats you’ll want to keep an eye out for during this year’s growing season.
What’s on your backyard checklist this spring? If it includes changing up the scenery completely, getting some fresh mountain air and relocating to beautiful Western North Carolina, we can help make that goal happen! Give Vista Developers a call (866) 519-2400 or contact us online to learn about the beautiful mountain home sites we have available.
