Your backyard is a major part of your home, even if it’s easy to forget about it when compared to the interior of your house. But as the weather gets warmer, you might spend more and more time outside. There’s also a lot you can do with your backyard.
It’s a great place to play and practice sports, especially if you have a large lawn. This can be great for exercising yourself, your pets, or giving your children a place to play. You can use your backyard as a place to hang out and socialize, or it can even be an area to grow food and get more out of your property.
But you can only get the most out of your backyard if you look after it. Here are a few things you need to do to keep your backyard well-maintained.
- A Simple, Low-Maintenance Design
Maintaining the exterior of your home starts with designing your backyard. If you know that you won’t have a lot of time to spend keeping everything looking nice, you want to give yourself a head start by thinking of low-maintenance designs for your backyard. The design of your backyard can even create a haven at home, so you can have another place to feel comfortable at home.
For example, think about the plants you grow in your backyard and how much care they’ll need. Look for ways to cut down on the amount of work your backyard will need by introducing paved areas and decking. If you have a lawn, look at grass types that grow well in your area and don’t need a huge amount of water or maintenance to look good.
If you’re starting from scratch, landscapers can help you to come up with some designs and implement them, and all you need to do from there is to look after your backyard.
- Consider Plant Needs in Your Backyard
The US is a huge country, taking up a significant part of North America. This means that the climate in one part of the US can be very different from the climate in another part of the same country. You can’t expect the same plants that thrive in Florida, which is a borderline tropical area, to also thrive in the boreal forest areas of Alaska or the deserts in Texas.
How do you know which plants will grow best in your backyard? One method is to use the USDA plant hardiness zones, which makes it easier to work out where certain plants can grow. But if you research plants local to your area, you’ll find that they also grow much more easily.
- Potted Plants
Plants grow well in the ground, but sometimes potted plants can be even more prolific and much easier to maintain. Large pots with a lot of soil can retain water more easily than lots of little pots, so it’s a good way to control how often you have to water your plants.
Pots allow you to more easily control the size of your plants and even move them around if you have to. You can also grow plants in pots even if you don’t have a lot of soil in your backyard, allowing you to add more greenery to small, paved backyards.
- Clearing Debris
One thing that can make a backyard look untidy very quickly is debris. As a general rule, it’s easier to do little and often rather than having to clean a huge amount of debris. You may need to do a big clear-out at the beginning of spring and the end of winter.
Depending on what you do with your leaves in the fall, you might have a lot of mulch to move around. Some people prefer to clean leaves as they fall so that their backyard looks tidier, and you can put them in your compost. But other people choose to leave the leaves where they are, so they can break down on the ground and provide habitats for small animals and insects.
Throughout the spring and summer months, you should keep on top of your backyard. Debris can fall from plants or grow in your garden, and you might generate a bit of mess yourself. Every couple of days or so, just go out and spend a few minutes tidying things up. This prevents it from building up and getting overwhelming.
- Watering and Weeding
Different plants require different amounts of water, so make sure to do your research when buying and planting plants. It’s very easy to overwater plants.
The best way to tell if your plants need watering is to look at the soil. If you dig into the soil by about an inch and it’s dry to the touch, the plant needs water. If it’s still moist and the plant looks healthy, you can leave it. Most plants need water every day, so if it doesn’t rain, you will need to water them more.
While you’re at it, get rid of weeds while they’re still small. Mulch or wood chips can slow weed growth and improve the water retention of your soil.
- Lawn Maintenance
If you have a lawn, you will need to keep on top of it to keep it looking neat. A push mower is ideal for small to medium-sized lawns, as they’re easy to store, and you can get different types of mowers to suit your needs.
For much larger lawns, a ride-on mower might be better. But bear in mind that you will have to store it somewhere safe and make sure that it has enough fuel or a way to recharge.
Fill in bald spots with grass seed or sod, and if necessary, you should water your lawn.
- Pruning Trees and Bushes
An important part of maintaining your backyard is to prune some of your plants. Most plants need to be pruned during winter, as this is less damaging to the plant and allows it to recover more quickly.
Pruning prevents plants from growing too much. This keeps them healthy and under control, especially if it’s a tree that could encroach too much on your backyard or if it’s a fruiting plant. Smaller, well-pruned trees and bushes can actually produce more fruit, as well as fruit that’s easy to access.
