photo credit: CathyK
Keeping a house clean is one thing, while keeping your yard looking perfectly manicured and pretty is something entirely different. When we tackle the inside of our homes, it’s easy to pack things away in a closet where no one will see them until we have time to organize. However, you can’t do this with your yard. Keeping the outside of your home looking nice requires regular work and attention.
For those of us who don’t enjoy spending our entire weekends outside working in the yard, there are ways to make yard work easier. All it takes is a bit of planning and organizational skills! Below are a few tips to help you keep your yard work under control and your yard in tip-top condition.
1. Get the Entire Family Involved. Yard work can be an extremely time consuming task when you’re doing it all alone. So, don’t do it alone. Get the rest of your family to help out. After all, it’s their yard too. Even if you only want their help on the first major “yard work day” of the season, that’s fine too. The important thing is that at some point you have everyone helping out. Not only does it make everything go quicker, but it gives each member of the family an appreciation for the amount of work it takes to maintain a pretty yard.
2. Plan Ahead. Take the time to think about the yard work before you actually begin. You need to make sure that you have all the tools required to complete the tasks you wish to do. For example, if you want to spend Saturday morning planting flowers and dressing up the flower beds, not only will you need gardening gloves, a hose and gardening tools, but you’ll also need the flowers, potting soil/fertilizer and mulch. So, take the time to preplan your yard work and gather up all of the tools involved in advance and you’ll save yourself a lot of time and trouble.
3. Break It Up. The thought of yard work can be overwhelming for some, especially when they have a ton of things that need to be done outside. If this describes how you feel, then don’t be afraid to break up the yard work chores throughout the day, or even over the course of a weekend. You can easily pull weeds one day and plant flowers the next. Or mow the lawn in the morning and weed-eat and rake grass up in the evening.
4. Make a Schedule. Unfortunately, yard work isn’t something that can be done in one day and not given another thought for the rest of the summer. It requires constant maintenance. So, to make everything easier on you and your family, create a schedule evenly distributing tasks between each member of the family. For example, your 17 year old son can handle mowing the yard twice a week while you 13 year old takes care of the weed-eating and edging. The youngest can be in charge of raking up the grass left behind while you maintain the flower beds and handle the watering.
Maintaining a nice looking yard take time and effort, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming when you utilize the tips listed above.
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