It’s hard to believe that we’ve survived yet another Chicago winter! For property management companies, spring means two things: assessing any potential damage done by the winter weather, and diving headfirst into spring landscaping. Here are four aspects of spring landscaping we look to first:
- Debris cleanup — those perfectly manicured landscapes don’t happen naturally by themselves. We try to do as much cleanup in the fall as the leaves are falling down, but inevitably some stuff gets missed, and new branches, foliage, and general debris may fall down over the winter season. So, step one is to get rid of all these pesky reminders of decay so we can have a fresh, clean spring landscape to work with.
- Pruning — only certain shrubs and trees get pruned in the spring, but this is an important task to stay on top of. If any branches have been broken or twisted during the winter, these get pruned as well because a clean cut is easier for the plant to heal.
- Give grass a boost — though grass really doesn’t need that much maintenance, to get a really lush, full look, we’ll typically have our landscapers spread some fertilizer as well as overseed some of the more bare spots to get some new growth going. Depending on whether we’ve had issues with crabgrass and weeds on a particular lawn, we may apply pre-emergent to stop these from growing before they’ve even had a chance to start.
- Powerwashing — walkways , common areas, benches, etc. are in various states of cleanliness from all the slush, salt, and mud of the last few months. Depending on the particular conditions, we may power wash some of these areas, or we may take the more environmentally-friendly approach and let the rains of spring take care of it.
