Garden cleaning is essential in spring so all your new blooms and lawn can welcome the sunny season with open arms. Before you start any gardening project with plants, trees and soil, make sure you have a clean slate, to begin with. Whether you’re a gardener at heart or taking on gardening as a hobby for the first time, this garden cleaning checklist will come in handy.
1. Clean Up Your Vegetable Beds
Vegetable beds are 12 to 18-inch deep rectangle beds in which you can plant garden veggies. These small, easy-to-maintain soil beds can elevate your garden in no time! You can grow small crops such as radishes, carrots, onions and tomatoes in these beds. Before planting the new seeds in spring, make sure you remove all the winter debris from your vegetable beds. This includes twigs, branches, fallen leaves, feline feces, weeds, hard blocks of soil and excess water. Follow up by adding new soil and fertilizers before you start growing your fresh veggies.
2. Clean Yard Gutter
Yard gutters are long pipe gutters that collect the excess rainwater and melted snow water away from your yard dumping it in the main municipal gutter line. They collect water through the downspout and yard drain located on your lawn. These gutters can get clogged with debris and dirt. It’s essential to get them cleaned and unclogged to avoid yard flooding destroying your spring garden.
3. Edge Your Garden Beds
Image Courtesy: Assiniboine Lights & Landscapes
Well-defined garden edges help you maintain and clean your flower beds and bushes without any fuss. As the lawn and weeds grow around, it can be difficult to find a finer line to put in new flower beds. Edging your garden beds with hand or power tools will quickly improve the aesthetics of your garden. After edging the garden bed, make sure you add a 2-3 inch mulch layer to stop weed growth while creating a gentle slope of a rich, dark-coloured edge. Edging garden beds will give you the opportunity to create multiple flowers, vegetables and ornamental beds in different shapes and sizes.
4. Prune Flowers, Plants & Shrubs
Spring is the season when your trees, plants, shrubs and bushes literally turn a new leaf. But in order for strong, new and colourful leaves to grow, you have to prune them. Pruning is a simple process where you remove dead branches, and leaves and trim them in a good shape. Pruning improves your plants’ health and allows them to grow at their fullest potential while increasing their flower and fruit production. However, be careful not to prune too much. Heavy pruning can destroy your plants. You can hire a local plant pruning specialist who will carefully prune your garden and clean up the debris afterwards.
5. Pull the Weeds
Removing weeds is extremely important when you’re planning to plant new shrubs. Weed often keeps your garden from growing in the direction that you intended. Overgrown weed is also not very aesthetically pleasing. Weed pulling is a simple three-step process: identify the weed you want to pull, loosen the soil around it for easy pull and finally carefully yet forcefully pull the weed with roots. You can remove weeds with weed pulling hand tools or even just by wearing your garden gloves.
6. Remove Dead Growth From Perennials
Perennial plants are often chosen by Canadian gardeners as they can sustain up to 3-4 different seasons with proper care. They are low maintenance and can quickly transform your garden into a European paradise. However, by the end of winter homeowners do see a dead growth from their perennials. It’s important that you trim this dead growth to allow their roots to breathe in the new season and bless your garden with new fresh growth.
7. Remove Winter Mulch
Image Courtesy: Ashlar Landscapes
Mulch is good for your garden but not the winter mulch! The melted snow water and overall dryness of the cold weather damage good garden soil. Make sure you get rid of hard soil blocks and remove the debris left by melted snow water. If you had laid out store-bought mulch, make sure you replace it with fresh spring mulch for a better gardening experience.
8. Tree Trimming
Pruning the large trees in your yard at the beginning of the spring allows them to grow, improves their health and helps them retain their natural shapes. Spring tree trimming helps get rid of winter damage, dead foliage and any diseases they might have. Heavy snow buildup on tree branches can weaken them. Trimming them right before spring will give them time to rejuvenate and sustain the weight of new growth. Make sure you hire a tree trimming pro to avoid any accidents by climbing up on tall trees with sharp equipment.
Below are the average costs of garden maintenance services across different cities in Canada:
| City | Average | Minimum | Maximum |
| Hamilton | $490 | $100 | $1,500 |
| Ottawa | $685 | $170 | $2,500 |
| Toronto | $1,511 | $100 | $15,000 |
| Vancouver | $1,300 | $300 | $3,500 |
*Costs based on 116 verified Canadian homeowner reviews as of March 2022
All this cleaning can be easily done if you have the right tools and enough storage space for them. New Age can help you ensign an incredible gardener’s garage to store your gardening and cleaning equipment. Visit their HomeStars profile and submit a request for a custom quote to build the ultimate gardener’s garage.
