How Do I Prepare My Landscaping for Winter?

As winter draws closer in Colorado, many Denver residents are looking from their windows out onto the lawn and thinking about the upcoming steps required to prepare the landscaping for the chilly winter months. For many, the winter season is seen as a little break from the constant mowing, weeding, and raking that is needed to keep a lawn looking gorgeous.

While that isn’t an incorrect opinion, it’s also important to put in a little extra work now to avoid having to do more later when the snow melts away and Spring begins to hit the Denver area. Many homeowners and property managers take Denver landscaping seriously, so grab the gloves and boots one more time this season to get prepared for winter.

3 Ways to Prepare Your Landscaping for Winter Like a Pro

By following these 3 steps to prepare your lawn for winter, you can be prepared ahead of time and have a lot less work to do and money to spend when it’s time to repair the damage left by the snow and freezing temperatures. Denver is known for its gorgeous landscaping, but also its chilly winter season, so these 3 tips will help you balance both expectations.

1. Aerate, Seed, & Soak

In the fall, you should always aerate your lawn and start overseeding for the winter. Planting trees, shrubs, and new grass before the first freeze gets close is a great way to get a headstart on the planting to come to Springtime, and avoid dead, gross, brown patches and poor coloring on your lawn. You’re trying to get the maximum amount of green under the snow when it all melts away and saves you time.

Plus, by soaking your landscaping with some soil conditioner and fertilizer, you can help keep the lawn healthy and happy even during a pretty rough winter season.

2. Trim Down the Greenery

Perennials should be cut down to just an inch or two once the first freeze comes in. You can also use a healthy mulch to protect the trimmed down perennials from the freeze, hungry little animals, and other elements as the snow and winter do its work on your landscaping. Make sure you’re also pruning down extra leaves, trimming all of your plants and out-of-season flowers down to an acceptable length, or cutting them out entirely to seed for new grass.

3. Blow Out the Irrigation System

Before the first freeze hits, you need to ensure your irrigation system has been fully winterized. This means using compressed air to blow all of the moisture out of your sprinkler system. You need to make this a priority because the damage that can be done if leftover water freezes within the pipes is expensive and difficult to repair. The risk of burst, cracked, or destroyed pipes is pretty high, especially