Get Ready for Fall with These Five Yard Care Tools

Do you have the tools to get your yard—or your clients’ yards—ready for fall?

Lawn and yard care in the fall is different than the rest of the year. As the weather changes, you’ll have fallen leaves and other yard debris to clean up. Grass growth slows down, meaning there’s a change in your mowing schedule. You might also want to take steps now to help prevent winter weeds. There’s also still trimming to do as you clean up the yard before winter.

Autumn will likely keep you busy at first, but as we get closer to winter yard care tasks start to slow down. That makes late fall a great time for equipment maintenance. Getting routine maintenance and any needed repairs out of the way now will mean that the equipment is ready to go come spring.

1) Blowers

Leaf blowers are probably the first tool you think of when you think of autumn lawn care. They’re great for moving all those fallen leaves off the lawns and gathering them up into piles. They’re also good for cleaning dirt and debris off things like patio furniture and grills before you put them away for the winter.

You can use blowers year-round, but if you only use one occasionally then it might make sense to get one as a multi-tool attachment rather than purchase a stand-alone blower. Multi-tools cut down on maintenance since you only have one power head to take care of. They can also save money compared to buying several different tools.

2) Shredder Vacs

If you want to gather up fallen leaves and shred them instead of just move them around, you’ll want to use a shredder vac instead of a blower. Shredder vacs vacuum up and shred leaves, grass clippings, and small twigs and collect it all in a bag. This reduces how much space the leaves take up in a trash bag (if you’re getting rid of them) and makes it easier to use them as mulch or put them in a compost bin.

Many shredder vacs can also work as blowers. The option to switch between blowing and vacuuming makes them a very versatile tool. You don’t have to gather up leaves and bag them by hand, and if you plan to use the leaves as mulch or compost, they’re ready to go after shredding.

3) Mowers

As the weather cools, warm-season grass like we have here in Texas grows more slowly. It won’t go dormant, though, until later in the winter so you’ll still need to mow the lawn. During particularly mild winters, you might even need to mow a few times during the winter as well as in the fall.

How often you mow in the fall will partly depend on your watering and fertilizing schedule. If you water and fertilize the lawn, the grass will keep growing later in the year. You should stop fertilizing in early to mid-fall so the grass can slow down. You’ll probably also cut back on irrigation as the weather cools since the lawn won’t need as much water when the grass isn’t actively growing.

4) Spreaders and/or Sprayers

Spreaders and sprayers come in handy when you’re applying fertilizer or treating a lawn with herbicide. Apply one more round of fertilizer in early fall as the grass’ growth starts to slow, then stop fertilizing until next spring.

Dormant lawns are more vulnerable to weeds since the grass isn’t actively growing. If you want to stop annual winter weeds, apply a pre-emergent herbicide in the late summer or fall once nighttime lows reach 55 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit for four consecutive days. For perennial weeds, you can use a sprayer to spot-treat them with a post-emergent herbicide.

5) Trimmers

Fall is a great time to tackle clean-up tasks around the yard. You’ll probably be cleaning up fallen leaves anyway, so why not trim gardens, hedges, and the edges of the lawn at the same time? String-line trimmers are a great tool for getting the parts of the lawn you can’t reach with a mower. They’re also helpful for cleaning up the edges of garden beds and cutting down stray weeds.

Fall isn’t the best time for hedge trimming, but you can still trim hedges in the early fall. Just don’t wait too late in the year to trim because the plants need time for the cut edges of branches to heal before there’s a risk of frost. You can, however, prune to remove dead, diseased, or damaged branches at any time during the year.

End-of-Year Maintenance

Fall is a good time to catch up on maintenance for lawnmowers and other equipment. Once you’re done using it for the year, clean the equipment thoroughly, change the spark plug and air filters (if needed), and stabilize or drain the fuel before storage. For battery-powered equipment, store the batteries separate from the tool in a clean, dry place that’s not too hot or too cold.

You don’t want to let ethanol-containing fuel sit in gasoline-powered equipment for more than 30 days. One option is to drain the fuel tank then turn the equipment on just long enough to use up any remaining fuel. You can also add a fuel stabilizer to protect the engine. If you think you might need to use the mower or other lawn tool before spring, then it’ll probably be easier to stabilize the fuel rather than drain it.

If you want some help with equipment maintenance or need some repairs, come visit us at Richardson Saw. Our highly trained technicians can help you get, and keep, your equipment running. And if you need any new yard care tools this fall, we’ve got those too.