Fall is called “fall” for a reason—the leaves ACTUALLY fall from the trees! While it’s tempting to ignore them to celebrate the holidays or watch football, leaves can cause problems for your lawn if left unattended. Here are a few reasons why you should clean up your yard when fall rolls around.
For starters, wet leaves can ruin your lawn, because leaves cut off sunlight and moisture. Leaves can also harbor fungus spores, diseases, and insect larvae which can spread to your lawn. Dry leaves are easier to rake and blow out of the beds and lawn areas. Clean them up as soon as they fall! Have you ever seen children jumping into a pile of leaves in the spring? Of course not – that would be gross! Moisture adds a lot of weight to leaves.
But don’t despair! You will probably only need to rake your yard twice. Fall foliage season in New Hampshire runs from Columbus Day to Thanksgiving. First the maples turn red, orange and yellow then fall to the ground. This is cleanup number one.
After Halloween, you can see the oaks, hickories and beech trees turning. By Thanksgiving time, these leaves are on the ground. This is cleanup number two. Once you remove the leaves from cleanup number one, cut your grass low as possible. This will make cleanup number two easier, and prevent snow mold from forming on your grass in the early spring.
With shortened daylight hours – and weekend football season in full swing – you may find you don’t have the time to your own fall leaf cleanups – even if it is only twice. This would be a good time to call Groundhog Landscaping! Our crews are busy doing fall cleanups from mid-October through the beginning of December. We can do cleanup number one (and mow the yard too), cleanup number two – or both. If you don’t mind raking but you have to bag your leaves, we can come in with a leaf vacuum truck and just remove the leaves for you. And – if you have any of those nasty fungi, diseases or insects affecting your lawn, we can send out our turf care professionals to diagnose the problem and propose a lawn care program to fix it – whatever it is.
At Groundhog Landscaping, we love fall, football and festivities. We also love the idea of giving our customers all their time back to enjoy it!