Keith's 5 Key Late Winter Tasks To Get You Ahead Of The Game

As spring approaches and the days start to get warmer, it can be very beneficial to take advantage of a warm day in late February or early March to set yourself up for a great spring.

1. Pre-Spring Planning: Take 30 minutes to walk around your yard and landscape to develop a plan for when the days are longer and warmer. Identify areas that need improvement and make a plan. These could be bare spots in the lawn that need seeding or areas of your landscape that need attention. There may be areas that you want to expand in your landscaping, and this is a great time to visualize these areas and start working on a plan.

2. Tool Inventory and Prep: Take some time to look over all of your tools and equipment. Take inventory of any old or broken tools that need to be replaced. Check for old fuel in mowers and trimmers. Sharpen blades on mowers or teeth on chainsaw chains. Check any leftover grass seed, fertilizers, or herbicides to see if they are still good.

3. Plant Maintenance: This is a good time to prune low limbs on trees and to prune some shrubs. You can remove any shrubs or plants that didn't make it through the winter. This is also a great time to deadhead or remove old dead foliage from perennials.

4. Landscape Bed Maintenance: A warm day in February is a great time to clean up your landscape beds by removing any remaining leaves, excess mulch, and clean the bed edges. If possible this is also a great time to mulch the beds.

5. Lawn Prep: Though the turf is more than likely still dormant, if there is warm weather, this time can be used to repair and seed any bare spots or fill in any low spots.

The key takeaway isn't that late winter is the best time to do all of these tasks, but instead, it is a great time to do them if you have time. If you wait until spring to do everything that is typically done in the spring, it can be easy to get overwhelmed or behind. Do what you can, when you can.