Putting Your Landscape to Bed: Jennifer Miree Cope’s Top Four Tasks to Complete Before the First Snowfall

Keeping your lawn looking great is a year-round job, even in the fall when greenery starts to die off. If you want your landscape to come back lush and green in the spring, you need to prepare it for the winter. As Jennifer Miree Cope explains, you don’t have to be a landscaping expert to make sure that your landscaping is prepared for the winter.

Read on to learn four of Jennifer’s easy steps to get your landscape ready for spring by preparing it this fall.

1. Leave Your Leaves Alone

While many homeowners have the instinct to rake every last leaf off their lawn during the fall, leaving a blanket of leaves can actually work wonders for your landscaping.

Leaves act as an effective winter blanket and insulate plant roots, preventing erosion. Leaving a layer of leaves before the first snowfall provides not only shelter but also food for your landscaping throughout the winter.

There’s no need to worry about a messy yard emerging in the spring — the leaves will decompose during the winter months, making way for a healthy yard.

2. Cover Your Plants

If you have a variety of plants or a vegetable garden that you hope will come back during the spring, you need to protect them from frost.

Even if you have plants that are cold-tolerant, Jennifer Miree Cope recommends that homeowners cover their plants with a cold frame or hoop house to keep frost from taking over the plants.

3. Stop Watering

A common mistake among homeowners taking care of their landscaping is continuing to water as the temperature starts to get colder. Many homeowners and even landscapers think that the plants should get water, even extra water, before the winter when they won’t receive the extra moisture.

Unfortunately, watering plants when the temperature starts dropping is actually more likely to harm your landscaping. As the temperature starts to drop, plants stop growing as rapidly, so continuing to water them can actually drown them and kill your plant life.

In addition, if saturated soil freezes during an overnight temperature dip, that means almost certain death for your plants.

4. Aerate Your Lawn

If you want your grass to grow back lush and green during the spring, it is worth it to aerate your lawn before the cold temperatures set in. Start by raking out the thatch, the layer of material that exists between the grass and the soil.

Then use an aeration tool that will create space for oxygen, moisture, and nutrients to permeate the ground and get to the root of the grass. According to Jennifer Miree Cope, aeration is one of the most effective strategies to promote green and lush grass in the spring.

Jennifer Miree Cope — Landscape Designer

Jennifer Miree Cope graduated from Vanderbilt University in 1985 with a degree in Electrical Engineering. Renowned for her passion and talent as a landscape designer, Jennifer’s associates often praise her for being organized and thorough. When not hiking in the mountains of North Carolina, attending University of Alabama sporting events, or exercising, Jennifer is often volunteering with one of the many charitable endeavors supported by Independent Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama: STAIR tutoring, Holiday House, or the Children’s Fresh Air Farm.