There’s nothing like Fall when Mother Nature changes seasons and leaves us the outdoor chore list that requires both Fall yard cleanup and garden chores that we must tend to!
Exquisitely autumn-colored foliage has dropped to the ground. Kicking and moving through hues of leaves like ripe red, rusty orange, and rich gold is the norm while strolling through the yard.
But all those leaves are just pure punishment to your grass if you let them sit unattended.
Overgrown branches, dead plants, and debris in the flower beds, all need to be tended to you’ve got to spruce up your gardens and get them ready to take on Old Man Winter and be ready for the spring!
That’s your shortlist for fall yard cleanup and garden overhaul chores and you’ve also got to tend to the garden beds throughout your property as well, le the DIY yard cleanup and garden overhauls begin!
Where To Begin The Fall Yard Cleanup + Garden Chores
It’s always best to walk the perimeter of your property to eyeball up all of the potential issues or what you will refer to as the Fall lawn and garden chores list to tackle.
Once you have a great sense of what needs to be done, you can begin sprucing up your gardens and the yard overhaul.
Fall Yard Cleanup Tip 1: Replace or repair fencing
If your property is fenced off, and it is a good idea it is for safety and security reasons, then ensuring that your garden’s border looks good will help to set the tone for the whole of the space.
Investing in new custom wood gates and fencing, that is in fitting with your property, and which looks smart and new will really help to give your garden the boost you are looking for and will be much more appealing than old, faded, rotting wood, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Alternatively, if your garden fences are in pretty good shape, but they’re just looking a bit worn, repainting them to give them a facelift can work well too.
Instead of sticking with the usual brown or white paint, why not try lavender or green, or sky blue instead?
If your homeowner’s association permits it, then going slightly out there with the color scheme can add a touch of fun and personality to your garden space.
2. Powerwashing: Spruce Up Your Gardens + The Pathways To Them
Use a power washer to clear any dirt and debris from any areas of paving in your garden space and it will instantly look a million times better.
The cement, stone, tile, and slab pathways surrounding your garden area can get pretty grimy due to the weather and constant use, but a powerwasher will bring all of the walkways and sitting areas that are paved, tiled, etc. to look like new in no time at all, ensuring that your garden is one of the best presented on the block.
3. Your Garden Chores Should Include Painting The Shed
If you have a shed or outbuilding in your garden, it can often end up looking unsightly or spoiling the natural view that you wish to enjoy.
One thing that can help with this is repainting your shed in a natural color like forest green, lavender purple, or sky blue, for example.
That way, it will be much more in keeping with the natural environment, and much less likely to stick out like a sore thumb and ruin the atmosphere.
If you don’t want to paint sheds and other practical, but not exactly beautiful, parts of your garden, then buying bamboo screens and using them to hide anything you do not want to look at from day to day is an excellent alternative that will give your garden a laidback Zen feel.
4. Sprucing Up Your Gardens Includes The Bird Feeding Zone
Chances are if you love your yard, you’ve got a garden area cut out for visiting birds and it probably includes a bird bath and a bird feeder!
Clean the bird feeders + the birth baths!
While both bird feeders and bird baths are fabulous add-ins to a garden to attract wildlife, allowing you to spend so much time watching and having a lot of fun, they also get really dirty really quickly!
You’ll want to clean them up for the season and if you live in an area where you hit 32°F and lower you will want to store your pedestal top inside so it does not crack from the freezing temperatures.
You do need to clean that bird bath to ensure it is safe for the birds to drink from and you can simply use DAWN and some water so that it is non-toxic.
Do keep the feeder filled as food is harder to find in the Fall and winter for the birds! Make sure to clean below the feeder as well so you don’t have a messy bed or plant florals that can take on the season right below so that the mess ends up within the flowers and does not show!
5. Care For Your Patio Furniture Doing Fall And Garden Chores
You might need to reupholster the garden furniture to get more life out of it.
If your garden furniture has seen better days, then taking the time to reupholster it with new fabric, or sand and paint it if it is wooden, will give it a fresh new look.
It’s much easier to upcycle furniture than you think, and there are loads of tutorials online, so don’t be afraid to give it a go.
6. Don’t Forget The Lighting When You Do Your Fall Yard Cleanup
Hang some lights and walkway lights for those dreary nights that need a little something to boost your yard.
Lights are a stunning addition to any garden and any yard.
Where to Use Lighting In Your Yard To Help in Sprucing Up Your Gardens?
- wrap them around fences
- embed them in your flowers
- add solar lights to walkways
- hang them from your home
- add the solar lights to the poles
- make a solar lamp out of recycled products
Once you are done with your fall yard cleanup and add these as a finishing touch you will not be disappointed and you will be able to use your areas as extended living areas throughout all the seasons.
And to add a pop of color to your outdoor living area, try this DIY.
A really fun way to make your garden more interesting, and much more beautiful, is to add a mosaic to the ground.
Use lots of little tile pieces to create a unique image right in the middle of your garden and it will certainly draw the yes, grab attention, and ensure that your garden is a bit different from all the other gardens on the block.
7. Fall Yard Cleanup Includes Weeding
No matter the season, keep your weeds around your yard and in all of the garden beds at bay!
Spending some time to pull up any weeds and treat them so that they hopefully do not grow back, is a really simple thing you can do that will definitely have the effect of sprucing up your garden space.
While the weeds will die off in the fall, you still need to pull them, because weeds can make a garden look unkempt, so the fewer of them there are, the better the appearance of your yard will be.
8. DIY For Fall Yard Cleanup Chores + Leaf Cleanup
Leaf Cleanup Is Kind of A Universal Chore. Your DIY for fall yard cleanup chores is a bit more intense but does not have to be harder work than necessary.
Working smarter means that the old way is not the right way, but it will make you feel old if you have to over-exert! So Where Do You Start Your Fall Yard Cleanup Chores?
While it is not necessary to have a leaf blower and vacuum with a mulcher in one power tool, I do! You so will want this too!
For me, it is one of the best power tools I own as it saves me time and back-breaking work!
The Blower Overview + Fall Yard Cleanup
The overall thesis of this particular blower = I can blow the leaves, vacuum, and mulch.
- The Worx blower is 8.8 lbs. in blower mode and 9.5 lbs. in vac mode due to the weight of the collection bag
- It turns on with the click of a button and it has an electrical cord that trails behind you
- There are 2-speed controls and they both are effectively strong
- The TRIVAC features two speeds with a maximum of 600 CFM.
- The wide-mouth, unobstructed circular tube design is ideal for vacuuming leaves and other yard debris
- The 12-amp blower/mulcher/vac has a single-stage metal impeller to shred leaves and twigs to a 16:1 ratio
- The lower setting moves any leftover leaf debris through plantings that are still dying off
- Vacuum mode sucks those leaves into the bag and slung over my shoulder so fast!
- if you were filling recyclable bags by hand with leaves and twigs, you would fill nearly 16 bags versus a single bag with the WORX TRIVAC
No rake, no bending, just pure blissfully working smarter not harder vacuuming of leaves!
*One note, you should work in spread-out layers, and with dry leaves for best results. Remember, wet and electric don’t mix, and this is an electric power tool!
9. Garden Chores + Fall Yard Cleanup Trees and Dead Debris
Grab your pruners, and clippers, and shape up the trees, shrubs, and bushes in that bed.
Remove saplings from the bases of trees with pruners.
Don’t forget to cut the rose bushes back and mulch some of the beds where you planted the bulbs to protect them from the cruel and punishing inbound weather!
10. Tall Grass + Garden Chores
Tall Grass is a seasonal item, and it may still be thriving in your yard, so you can tie it off now or you can wait a few weeks.
Do make sure to tie it off if you don’t intend to cut it back until the spring.
Use the twine for this tie-up.
11. Plant Some Fresh Seasonal Items To Spruce Up Your Gardens
Lastly, to give the yard a color pop add a few seasonal plants, like hardy Chrysanthemums.
Mums come in a bunch of different colors so you can work out a color scheme or you can just plant them any way you want.
Remember if you cut these back late in November they will come back again next season (if you’ve got perennial mums)
If your garden is not exactly brimming with color, then planting some more flowers will really help to spruce it up.
If you are not particularly great at gardening, then planting flowers in pots is usually easier to do, and has the added bonus that you can move the flowers around and rearrange them whenever you want to create a new look in the garden.
The more differences you can bring into the garden in the form of flora, the more interesting the space will seem and the good news is that there are plants for every season so you have no excuses!
DIY For Fall Yard Cleanup Chores and How To Make Them Easier
Prepping your yard for the fall is not a hard job, but it is time-consuming if you don’t keep up with all the necessary Fall yard cleanup and garden chores.
Happy Fall ~ Enjoy. Dana XO