Spring Landscape Clean-Up: A Step-by-Step Guide for Sarasota Homeowners
If you used to live in Minnesota and you hated spring yard cleanup so much that you moved to Florida to escape it, we have some bad news.
Spring landscape cleanup happens here, too.
But the good news is here you can tackle the task in shorts, not mittens. (Have you ever tried pruning in mittens?)
What’s included in spring landscape cleanup in Sarasota? Removing messy debris. Cutting back plants. Tidying planting beds. Refreshing mulch.
Let’s learn more about your yard cleanup checklist, including:
First, Do We Really Need Spring Cleanup in Sarasota?
Winter is pretty mild here in Sarasota. Do we really need spring cleanup?
It might not be as big a deal as in northern states, but Florida yards need some attention after the winter months, too.
Leaves drop. Beds get messy. Mulch gets scattered around. Plants get leggy. Yikes, should you just move to a new house? Nah, you’ve got this.
But Florida’s warm, humid spring climate means spring garden maintenance should begin sooner here than in northern states.
Plan on tackling a few tasks starting in early to mid-March.
What should be on your yard cleanup checklist? Here’s a step by step landscape guide to spring cleanup:
1. Spring Garden Maintenance: Clear Out the Yuck
Winter storms bring down plenty of messy debris, from fallen twigs to leaves to palm fronds. None of this is good for your lawn. It smothers it, preventing important sun, water and nutrients from reaching the soil and blocking the growth of new grass.
This is especially important if you have a St. Augustine lawn, and many of us do. St. Augustine grass spreads by rhizomes, which need to fill in the spaces between each blade of grass. If debris fills those spaces, the rhizomes can’t spread.
Oak and magnolia trees drop leaves during the winter. Mulch gets scattered. Plants drop old blossoms and pods.
A good Sarasota yard cleaning clears away the gunk and makes way for new growth. If you leave the mess, that encourages fungus that thrives in damp, decaying yard debris. Guess what loves this exact situation? Snakes. (No charge for this jolt of motivation.)
Good news: If you’re on board with our 52-visit landscape maintenance program, spring cleanup and heavy pruning is included. Snakes fear us.
2. Cut Back Plants to Prepare Your Garden for Spring
If you don’t cut back your garden plants in the spring, you’ll have leggy growth all summer. They just won’t look good.
Pro tip: Wear garden gloves, as some plants, including crotons and schefflera, have sap that can irritate your skin.
A few plants that need a spring trim:
- Crotons. Cut back leggy stems by up to one third, just above a leaf node, to encourage bushy, compact growth. (What the heck is a node? Learn more in a bit in our FAQ section.)
- Shefflera. Cut back leggy stems by up to two thirds.
- Hibiscus. Cut your hibiscus shrub back to about a foot. If it’s a hibiscus tree, cut it back to about a 2-foot by 2-foot square area.
- Got grasses? Fakahatchee grass, muhly grass and pampas grass can be cut back to 6-12 inches above the ground before new green shoots appear.
- Overgrown shrubs like boxwood, privet or azaleas can be cut back hard — 6-12 inches above the ground— in early spring to rejuvenate them.
If you have questions about cutting back specific plants in your yard, ask a pro.
3. Tidy Planting Beds
Beds looking messy? We thought so. That’s why tidying them up is on the yard cleanup checklist. Spring is a great time for tidying.
Remove any weeds and debris and redefine the bed edges so they’re nice and crisp. Edging is sort of like magic.
A clear, defined edge between your planting beds and your lawn looks impressive and makes your neighbor stop during his morning walk to admire it. It also helps your mulch stay put, so it doesn’t scatter into your lawn.
You want your mulch to stay where it belongs, so it can help your beds hold onto moisture and block sunlight that weeds need to thrive.
Which brings us to:
4. Add Fresh Mulch to Prepare Your Garden for Spring
Please, don’t skip the mulch. It looks humble, but it’s a landscaping superstar.
Why? So many reasons:
- Mulch blocks the sunlight that weeds need to sprout. Good mulch, fewer weeds.
- Mulch helps your soil hold onto moisture, conserving water and keeping your plants happy.
- Mulch prevents the frequent Sarasota summer rain from washing away the precious soil your plants need.
- Bonus: mulch breaks down over time, adding valuable nutrients to your soil.
Speaking of that breaking down part, mulch doesn’t last forever. It also fades over time in our Southern Florida sun. You’ll want to replace it once or twice a year.
5. Yard Cleanup Checklist: Trim Palm Trees
Spring is the time to trim palm trees before hurricane season arrives in the summer.
The idea is to remove any dead fronds that could break off and go flying like missiles in high winds.
If you have a self-cleaning palm, don’t worry about this task.
A self-cleaning palm means that the older, dead palm fronds will fall away from the trunk on their own — no need for pruning.
Palms that aren’t self-cleaning require occasional pruning to remove the brown fronds after they die.
But this is important: only trim palm fronds that are completely brown and lifeless. Fronds with even a hint of green are still crucial for the tree's health.
6. Treat Your Compacted Lawn to Spring Aeration
Here in Southern Florida, winter is nice and cool, so everybody heads outside.
That means your lawn gets compacted from everybody walking all over it, from your dog to your kids to that neighbor admiring your edging who wanted an up-close view.
When your soil is compacted, your lawn can't breathe. Its roots can't take in the water and nutrients it needs to thrive.
Lawn aeration and top dressing to the rescue.
Plan to follow up your spring garden maintenance with aeration. Spring is the perfect time, at the beginning of the growing season.
Lawn aeration uses a cool machine to pull out tiny cores of soil from your lawn, allowing water and oxygen to get to the roots again.
Aerating sod also helps break down thatch, a layer of dead grass that sits between the grass blades and the soil. When it gets too thick, thatch blocks air, water, and fertilizer from reaching your lawn’s roots.
After lawn aeration, you have a bunch of little holes in your lawn, helping your grass breathe.
It’s the perfect set-up for lawn topdressing. Topdressing is food for your soil, a nutrient-rich layer of soil or sand blended with compost and other organics.
As the material settles, the nutrients release into the soil and do their thing — creating a strong foundation for a healthy and lush lawn.
Spring Landscape Cleanup FAQ
Q. When should I start spring cleanup here in Sarasota?
A. Plan on early March to early April.
Q. Do all my plants need cutting back in spring?
A. No. While early spring, before new growth, is a great time to cut back many tropical plants, shrubs and trees, many flowering shrubs are exceptions. If you have spring-flowering shrubs like azaleas or camellias, wait until after they bloom to cut them back. You don’t want to cut off the buds.
Q. Should I do a “hurricane cut” on my palm trees in spring, before hurricane season?
A. If by “hurricane cut” you mean removing most of the fronds, then absolutely not.
Removing fronds that have even a hint of green actually weakens and harms your palm tree, making it more susceptible to wind damage.
Only remove completely brown, dead fronds in preparation for hurricane season in summer.
Q. When I’m cutting back plants, where do I cut?
A. Let’s talk nodes. They’re the points on a stem where leaves, buds and shoots grow.
You want to cut above a node. This encourages new growth to form in the right direction. If you cut below a node, you leave behind a section of plant that can't grow new stems.
So aim for a clean, straight cut just above a leaf node.
Need Spring Landscape Cleanup? Talk to Us
Excited about raking up soggy yard debris, edging your garden beds and spreading mulch?
We are. Why not leave your spring cleanup chores to us?
Tropical Gardens offers landscape maintenance services in Sarasota that can include the spring cleanup you need but hate doing.
Our professional lawn care service includes two comprehensive landscape maintenance programs that cover all your year-round lawn maintenance issues. One plan includes 42 visits and the other offers 52 visits.
Pro tip: Choose a full-service Sarasota landscape maintenance company. Chances are, your landscaping needs include more than just spring cleanup.
You want one skilled, reputable landscaping company to handle all your year-round landscape maintenance, from mowing to plant health care to irrigation.
It’s a lot easier on you. It means there’s just one place to call when you have questions or concerns about your property, no matter the issue.
Let’s get started. We’ll help you figure it all out.
Give us a call or fill out our form today. Our team of local lawn care experts will tidy up your winter-weary landscaping and freshen it all up for spring.
