Fall is an important transitional period for any garden or outdoor space. Fall cleanup is key to ensuring that your garden, yard or other natural space continues to thrive for the rest of the autumn season before the winter sets in. Fall cleanup takes on a new importance if you live in an area with cold winters or snowfall, but regardless of where you live, fall cleanup is a crucial step that every homeowner must take. Let's take a closer look at why fall cleanup matters, along with the most important aspects of cleaning up during the fall.
Why Fall Cleanup Is Essential
Imagine leaving children’s toys on the staircase or an oil spill on on the floor of the kitchen. It’s difficult to imagine, because leaving toys or spills in those areas creates a potential hazard. The same concept must then be applied to yards, gardens and outdoor spaces during the fall. Everything from fallen fruit to loose branches and so much in between can create a hazard; these hazards range from immediate–such as the risk of twisting an ankle on fallen fruit–to long term, such as an increase risk for pests.
Fall Cleanup Routines You Shouldn’t Skip
The steps in your fall cleanup routine may vary depending on where you live and the nature of your outdoor space. Most people, however, will need to concern themselves with the following fall cleanup routines.
Cleaning Up Fallen Fruit
Fruit that drops in the fall can be a potential hazard in a number of ways. It creates a physical hazard due to the possibility of stepping on a piece of fruit, which can lead to injuries; and it also creates both short and long-term pest hazards. In the short term, fallen fruit can attract raccoons, squirrels and other animals into your yard. In the long term, ignored fallen fruit may led to fly infestations.
For example, let’s say you leave a dozen fallen apples on the ground to rot. If left alone, these apples may become home to apple maggots; the apple maggots may then burrow underneath the soil and emerge as flies in the spring; these flies will then lay their eggs in your newly growing apples, starting a pest infestation that will be a pain to manage. Birds, squirrels and similar animals may take the apples with them; this can spread the apple maggots across a wider area, causing problems for other apple trees.
Picking Up Loose Leaves, Branches and other Plant/Tree Debris
It can be tempting to simply let leaves, branches and other debris from plants and trees take their natural course on the ground. Unfortunately, leaving this debris to rot over the winter greatly increases the chances of several major problems: disease, weeds and pests.
Fallen leaves infected with disease need to be removed promptly because they can infect any other plants they come into contact with, such as bushes or other trees. Leftover leaves, branches and other debris can encourage pests to invade your outdoor space in the wintertime; these pests not only cause a host of problems on their own, but they can actually lead to weed infestations due to the fact that these pests often ingest weed seeds, which are then spread through their droppings.
