Seasonal Landscape Maintenance Checklist
Seasonal landscape maintenance tasks are extremely critical in keeping your landscape healthy and beautiful. Landscapers have their mental checklist, prune this during spring, turn that off during fall, and so on. Each season we have our to-do list that we follow to make sure our properties are looking great all year long.
We’ve created a helpful checklist for you to follow along as the seasons change to ensure you or your landscaper are taking care of regular landscape maintenance and seasonal tasks.
Seasonal Checklist for Spring Maintenance
The beginning of the season is always hectic for landscapers. It seems to be our busiest time with getting irrigation systems up and running, cleaning up properties to get ready for the season, and applying pre-emergent herbicides to reduce weeds during the summer season.
When we aren’t running around maintaining landscapes and checking off our list, we are renewing contracts, checking in with our clients, and doing property walks to prepare for our season. And if mother nature has its way, we may be doing some snow removal and ice control long into the spring season.
We’ve listed regular spring landscape maintenance tasks so you can follow along with your landscaper:
- □ Charge and turn on irrigation and check for repairs
- □ Check irrigation controller batteries and set correct time and date
- □ Program irrigation for the spring season
- □ Do a thorough cleanup of the landscape
- □ Remove weeds in garden beds
- □ Deep clean artificial turf
- □ Start up and clean water features
- □ Aerate and fertilize lawns
- □ Look for winter damage on plants and suggest replacements, as needed
- □ Clean up debris and leaves
- □ Refresh organic mulch
- □ Snow removal and ice control, as needed
Seasonal Checklist for Summer Maintenance
When spring start up is over, our landscape maintenance season begins. Summer is a time of maintenance including, trimming lawns, maintaining and repairing irrigation, and keeping properties looking great.
During the summer, we provide weekly service. The goal during the summer is to keep properties looking clean and polished as well as ensure plant material is healthy. Our account managers and quality control manager visit properties regularly to ensure nothing is getting missed or needs to be addressed.
- □ Mow and edge lawn areas
- □ Clean up debris and garbage
- □ Maintain and repair irrigation systems
- □ Adjust irrigation schedules for hotter, drier weather
- □ Deadhead flowering perennials
- □ Prune back overgrown plants, as needed
- □ Hedge shrubs, as needed
- □ Maintain water features
- □ Spray and remove weeds, as needed
- □ Look for and control insect and vertebrate pests
Seasonal Checklist for Fall Maintenance
Though temperatures begin to cool in fall, it is still a busy season for landscape companies. In the fall, we focus on keeping properties clean of leaves and other debris as well as putting landscapes ‘to bed.’
During fall we shut down and winterize irrigation systems to get ready for freezing temperatures. We do our last round of mowing, including applying a slow-release fertilizer for the winter months.
As we prepare landscapes for the dormant season, we keep an eye on plants in poor health and make notes of issues we faced during the growing season. This prepares us from spring when we begin maintenance again.
- □ Clean up leaves and other debris
- □ Make final irrigation repairs
- □ Spray and remove weeds, as needed
- □ Detail perennials by removing dead material and trimming back
- □ Prune trees and shrubs
- □ Aerate and fertilize lawns
- □ Do final lawn mowing and edging
- □ Shut down and winterize irrigation systems and water features
- □ Store irrigation RPA for commercial properties to reduce theft
- □ Provide winter watering if there is no precipitation for extended periods of time
Seasonal Checklist for Winter Maintenance
As the holidays approach, winter weather sets in and we begin getting long periods of freezing temperatures. By now our irrigation systems are winterized, lawn care is complete, and pruning should be done.
Winter landscape maintenance is about making sure landscapes are clean and in good repair. This is the perfect time to deep clean planter beds, prune, and prepare that landscape for the growing season. We offer snow removal and ice control, holiday lighting installation, and winter watering for our clients.
- □ Ensure fall maintenance has been completed
- □ Continue to clean up leaf and other debris
- □ Provide winter watering for trees, shrubs and perennials if there is no precipitation for extended periods of time
- □ Do final pruning of trees and shrubs
- □ Snow removal and ice control on paved areas
- □ Apply pre-emergent herbicides to assist in week abatement in planter beds.