Fall Landscaping for Your NJ Home

With fall comes a furry of home improvement activity for all home owners who take great pride in their homes. This includes their landscapes. Fall is ideal for outdoor home improvement projects. From creating a new patio, to setting up a new raised veggie garden for spring planting, there’s no limit to what you should do this fall in the landscape. Here are some ideas you can do this fall for your New Jersey fall landscaping project.

Fall is ideal for landscaping because it’s actually a great time to plant permanent landscape plant elements such as new lawns, trees, shrubs, and perennials. The cooler weather helps plants stay hydrated better, as extreme summer heat and spring fluctuating temperatures can be stressful to new plants- especially lawns. Seeding lawns is also ideal in the fall for the same reason. Interestingly, many nurseries put their trees, shrubs, lawn seed, and other live landscape materials on sale right now too, so not only is it the best time to plant but you also can get great deals on the plants and seed you need.

This time of year is also ideal for cleanup of plants, including pruning and trimming of many types. If you’re unsure, let a professional take care of it for you.

With the drier weather of fall comes extended days where comfortable working weather is abound. This is true not only for the do-it-yourself homeowner, but for landscape companies and hired hands. The good fall weather makes working outside more pleasant and a lot more gets done. The more moderate temperatures and long stents of dry weather make concrete setting and landscape gluing go smoothly. And the satisfaction of having a brand new outdoor space ready to enjoy when winter breaks and spring comes is also a great reason to get your projects done in the fall.

So what are some good projects to get done right now? Here are some specific landscape tasks that are ideally done in the fall in New Jersey:

• Seeding new lawns, seeding bare spots, dethatching and general repair of lawns.
• Planting young trees, including ornamental trees both evergreen and leafy, and fruit bearing trees.
• Planting shrubs, especially foundation plantings.
• Mulching and soil improvement are also essentially done in the fall.
• Installation of patios and pathways
• Repairing sheds, adding and repairing storage buildings, repairing irrigation systems, installing new ones too.
• Creation of new beds, including veggie and edible beds as well as perennial borders and foundation beds.
• Planting of perennials. They may not look their best from the nurseries, but as long as the crown of the plant looks good, the plant itself is healthy. The crown of a plant is the area where the new growth comes out of the top and where the plant grows its roots out of into the ground. Most perennials die back to the crown beginning in the fall. Hired help will know what to look for. For the DIY homeowner, look for signs of decay like black slimy areas, or brown areas that are mushy. If a plant has this, it’s not healthy.
• Installing birdbaths, ponds, fountains, dry creek beds, French drains, and other water moving features.
• Trimming of some trees and plants, pruning of many as well.

A lot of the typical tasks needed for a beautiful and healthy landscape, as well as installation of that landscape happen ideally in the fall. This is the season to get it done!

Below are some addition photos of landscaping for your New Jersey home.