Fall Cleanups, Pruning, and Perennial Care: Preparing Your Landscape for Winter

Preparing your landscape for the colder months is essential. Fall cleanups, pruning, and perennial care all play a vital role in maintaining a beautiful, healthy property through winter. Whole 9 Yards Lawn Care and Landscapes customizes each job to fit your unique landscape, ensuring it receives the care it deserves.

Fall Cleanups: Tailored Services for Every Client

For Mowing Clients (Fall Contract)

Our fall contract is exclusively available to our regular mowing clients. This service ensures consistent upkeep throughout the fall season, maintaining a clean, healthy landscape as the leaves begin to drop. Here’s what you can expect:

• Weekly Mulching: As part of each mowing service, leaves are chopped and mulched, preventing them from matting down, which can harm the lawn. This process also recycles nutrients back into the soil, promoting healthy growth.
• Customized Timing: We recommend cleanup timing based on your specific trees. Some trees, like Maples, drop leaves early, while others, such as Oaks, Beech, Japanese Maples, and Pear trees, hold onto leaves longer. Our approach adapts to your property’s unique foliage.
• Billing: The fall contract for mowing clients is billed in full on October 1st.

For Clients Without the Fall Contract

For clients who do not receive regular mowing services from us, we offer flexible fall cleanup options to suit properties of all types, especially those with heavy leaf drop.

• One-Time Cleanups: Ideal for clients who need a single, thorough cleanup toward the end of the season, typically scheduled in late November or early December.
• Multiple Cleanup Visits: For properties with heavy tree coverage, we recommend multiple cleanup visits starting as early as October to manage leaf accumulation effectively.
• Customized Scheduling: Based on your needs and leaf volume, we work with you to create a plan that suits your property.

Fall Pruning: A Custom Approach for Each Plant

Fall is a critical time for pruning, but it requires careful attention to each plant’s growth cycle. Not all plants should be pruned this time of year, as some, like Rhododendrons and Azaleas, already have buds set for next spring. Pruning these plants in fall could impact their flowering. We take special care with hydrangeas, as some varieties bloom on "old wood" (such as Hydrangea macrophylla), while others bloom on "new wood" (like Smooth and Panicle Hydrangeas). Plants like Butterfly Bush also bloom on new wood, making them suitable for fall pruning to encourage strong, fresh growth next season.

For plants like Barberries and Spirea, fall is an excellent time for corrective pruning. Corrective pruning sets these plants up for optimal rejuvenation next season by redirecting energy back to the roots as the plant enters dormancy. This stored energy will support healthy, vigorous growth when the plant reawakens in spring.

Benefits of Corrective Pruning:

• Enhances Plant Health: Removing dead or diseased branches directs more energy toward healthy growth and prevents the spread of disease.
• Encourages Dense Growth: Pruning during dormancy helps create a fuller, more compact shape as the plant regrows in spring.
• Boosts Root Development: Pruning as the plant enters dormancy allows energy to concentrate in the root system, supporting strong spring growth.

Whole 9 Yards tailors each pruning job to your specific plants, ensuring the best results for a healthy, beautiful landscape. For properties in Flemington, Bridgewater, and Bernardsville, we bring a customized approach to meet the unique needs of your landscape.

Perennial Cutbacks: Health and Aesthetics Combined

Most perennials benefit from fall cutbacks, which promote fresh growth in spring. However, we assess each perennial individually to determine what’s best. Semi-evergreen varieties like Hellebores, Dead Nettle, and Coral Bells are often left standing to add winter interest and help the plant conserve energy. By customizing perennial cutbacks to your property, we provide each plant with optimal care.

Set Your Landscape Up for Success This Fall

Fall maintenance is about more than just keeping your property tidy—it’s an investment in a thriving landscape for next season. Whole 9 Yards customizes each fall cleanup, pruning, and perennial care service based on your property’s unique needs, giving it the best foundation for spring.

Ready to get started? Visit our Landscape Maintenance page to learn more or Contact Us to discuss your fall landscape care needs. We look forward to helping you keep your property beautiful year-round.