A Guide to the Top Spring Cleanup Tasks to Enhance Your Landscape

Spring is around the corner, and now is the time to think about cleaning up and giving your landscape a fresh look. Leave the doldrums of winter and get ready for the warmer spring months.

At Campbell & Ferrara, our landscape experts enjoy working with homeowners to ensure that their landscape is beautiful. Our team takes pride in transforming and maintaining landscapes. The most important service we provide is creating your dream outdoor environment and being available to help maintain your landscape for years to come. Cleanup services are available year-round.

In this blog post, you’ll learn how our boutique landscape company will expertly perform spring cleanup tasks, including:

Cleaning up debris and weeding your beds
Pruning your trees and shrubs
Edging your landscape
Fertilizing your landscape plants, trees, and shrubs
Mulching for a tidy look and other plant health benefits
Adding seasonal color to beautify your spring landscape.

Cleaning up Debris and Weeding Your Flowerbeds

Mother Nature leaves a mess during the wintertime. Your landscape may have leaves, pinecones, nuts, seed pods, trash, and other debris lying on your property after windy winter weather.

Your landscape plants will be able to wake up to springtime when all of the debris and trash is cleaned up. Our landscape experts will take special care to:

Remove plant debris
Pull up last year’s annuals
Add fertilizer to plants as needed.

Now that the weeds have been removed from the garden surface and before new weed germination, we recommend applying Preen Pre-Emergent Granules for weed prevention. Early spring application will prevent the growth of summer weeds; however, it will not kill existing weeds. For the best success, it should be applied every 9-12 weeks during the growing season.

Pruning Your Trees and Shrubs

The best time for our landscape experts to visit your property to prune your shrubs and trees is in late winter or early spring before the leaf buds break, preparing them for spring blossoms and leaves.

Plus, the cold temperatures help control the sap and trees recover quickly from pruning wounds.

Learn more: Winter Pruning Guide for Trees and Shrubs

Using the correct tool(s), our landscapers selectively trim the following from your trees and shrubs to give them a uniform look while preserving their natural shape:

Damaged, dead, decaying, or weak branches
Removing lower tree branches that create a visual obstruction
Structural pruning on young trees
Tree suckers and sprouts emerging from the tree
Thinning or reducing the tree’s density to allow more air circulation and sunlight into the crown.

Show off your pruned trees and shrubs this spring and enjoy them into the evening by creating focal points with outdoor lighting.

Edging Your Landscape

Edging creates a distinctive boundary between your lawn and your landscaped areas. Our skilled landscapers will create a natural edge or use hardscape materials, such as pavers, bricks, and natural stones, depending on your taste.

Your landscape designer will work with you to discuss what type of edging you prefer and will convey those details to our skilled landscapers to execute in the field. Our designers can add curves and straight lines to your landscaped areas to create interest and visual appeal.

Edged flowerbeds will keep the mulch in your beds and out of your lawn. Additionally, this barrier protects trees from lawn mowers hitting and scarring the bark during the growing season.

Fertilizing Your Landscaped Plants, Trees, and Shrubs

Our horticulturists will recommend timely application of the appropriate fertilizers for your trees, shrubs, and plants in the landscape. Fertilizer helps replenish any lost nutrients over the winter and boost brighter blossoms in the spring.

Since most woody plants begin new growth early in the spring, fertilizer helps:

Stimulate new growth
Roots go deep in the ground to find water sources during drought
Ensure your trees and shrubs are healthy and can fight off pests and diseases.

Mulching for a Tidy Look and Other Plant Health Benefits

Mulch does more than make your flowerbeds and landscaped areas look tidy. Indeed, mulch provides many benefits to plants, trees, and shrubs:

Prevents frost heave
Regulates soil temperatures
Insulates plant roots to keep them cool in the summer and warm in the winter
Holds in moisture
Reduces weeds
Adds nutrients as it breaks down.

Our landscape designers recommend natural mulch because it’ll provide more nutrition as it breaks down in the soil. Here are three mulches we recommend:

Hardwood chips or bark
Hardwood shredded
Pine straw and pine needles
Pine fines.

Our landscape experts will apply the appropriate amount of mulch to your flower beds, gardens, and other landscaped areas. We want to make sure that the plant’s needs are addressed so they can thrive.

Adding Seasonal Color to Beautify Your Spring Landscape

Make your landscape pop with color. Adding seasonal color provides interest to the landscape. Our landscape designers/horticulturists listen to understand and deliver your landscape vision. Plants will be recommended that will thrive in the specific landscape conditions. Every landscape is unique and choosing the correct plants in your landscape design is critical for success.

Below are a few colorful flowering plants that our horticulturists recommend for your property:

Serviceberry trees (Amelanchier arborea/A. canadensis) for year-round interest, starting in spring with white blossoms, yellow to red leaves in the fall, and smooth gray bark and purple fruit in the winter.

Pinxterbloom azaleas (Rhododendron periclymenoides – Pinxterbloom Azalea) work well in shady landscapes and areas with moist, well-drained soil. Hummingbirds and other pollinators love this flowering shrub’s pink blooms.

Flowering perennials include:

Moss phlox (Phlox subulata) – This beautiful groundcover has rose, pink, or white flowers that bloom from April through May. The leaves mimic the look of moss.

Creeping phlox (Phlox stolonifera) – Another beautiful groundcover blooms in various colors between March and April. This groundcover does well in rock gardens and retaining walls.

Eastern columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) – This perennial has showy red, pink, and yellow bell-like blooms and grows in bunches. Eastern Columbine does well in shaded areas, blooming from April through May.

Virginia bluebells (Mertensia virginiana) – Virginia bluebells’ unique blue set in dark purplish-green foliage creates a magical picture along your property’s wetlands or in your wooded landscape. Truly awe-inspiring.

Common annuals to brighten borders, walkways, and retaining walls – Traditional annuals, including begonias, geraniums, impatiens, and petunias, keep flowering from spring through fall and work well in baskets, garden beds, and with hardscapes.

Don’t Wait to Make Your Spring Cleanup Appointment with Campbell & Ferrara

We work closely with our clients at Campbell & Ferrara to better understand your purpose and goals for your landscape. Start the spring season with a freshly enhanced landscape delivered by one of our personable and skilled team members. Book your spring clean-up in advance because prime spots are already being scheduled.

Also, if you plan on adding a patio to your space this spring, check out some of our Featured Projects and our Google Reviews, then look to us at Campbell & Ferrara for all you need in a patio pavers company.

Call us today at 703-354-6724 or fill out our consultation form.

Sources:

BarbersNursery.com, What’s Included in a Spring Clean Up?

EdgeRight.com, Everything You Need to Know About Landscape Edging Options.

Extension.UMD.edu, Moss Phlox.

Extension.UMN.edu, Serviceberry.

Extension.OregonState.edu, Spring Is a Good Time to Fertilize Young Trees and Shrubs.

Grainger.com, 8 Must-Have Pruning Tools for Outdoor Maintenance.

Plant.CES.NCSU.edu, Rhododendron Periclymenoides.

ThisOldHouse.com, Smart Spring Yard Cleanup.

TreesAreGood.org, Pruning Trees.

VNPS.org, 1989 Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia Virginica).