What a Fall Clean-Up Actually Involves Before Winter

Leaves are the obvious part of fall work, but they are only one line on the list. A real fall clean-up leaves a yard ready for winter and ready for spring. It means the lawn can breathe, the beds are clean, nothing is hanging over the house, and the junk is gone. "Fall Clean-up" is on the door of Polo's truck for a reason. Here is what it should include.

Timing: wait for the leaves, not the calendar

In East Texas, oaks hold their leaves late. If you clean up the first week of November, you may be doing it again by Christmas. The sweet spot is usually after most of the trees have dropped, often late November into December, with a lighter pass earlier if wet leaves are piling up on the lawn.

Don't let a thick layer of wet leaves sit on St. Augustine or Bermuda for weeks. It blocks light, holds moisture against the blades and invites mold. A thin scatter is fine. A smothering blanket is not.

Leaves: blow, mulch or haul

• Light scatter: mow right over it. The mower chops the leaves fine and they feed the soil.
• Medium layer: blow the leaves off the lawn and out of the corners, then mow once more to clean up what the blower missed.
• Heavy layer: blow into rows, collect and haul off. Bagging a yard full of oak leaves is a lot of weight, which is where a truck and trailer earn their keep.

Clear leaves out of the bed edges, from behind the downspouts and off the driveway too. Those are the places they pile up and stain concrete.

If you have pines, the needles are a separate chore. They don't mat like oak leaves, and they make good mulch for beds, so rake them there instead of sending them to the curb. Pick a dry day for any haul-off. Wet leaves are far heavier than dry ones, and they stick to everything.

Beds cleared down to soil

This is the part most people skip, and the part that shows. Fall is the time to cut back anything that died off, pull the weeds that went to seed, and take out the volunteer saplings that popped up where nothing was planted.

One set of photos from Polo's crew shows a curved brick-edged bed that had grown over with shrubs and saplings. The finished side shows the same bed cleared down to bare soil, with the birdbath and statue left right where they were. That is the idea: take out what doesn't belong, keep what does, and leave a clean slate that holds up through winter.

Limbs, brush and storm leftovers

Summer storms leave broken limbs in the yard and dead branches in the trees. Fall is a good time to collect what is already on the ground and take a look at what is hanging. Loose limbs don't improve with a winter storm. Anything small enough to pull down can come out now. Anything large or high deserves a closer look before it comes down on its own.

Piles of brush and clippings are best moved off the property rather than stacked behind the shed. Brush piles shelter rodents and snakes, and they just sit there. Trash haul-off is also listed on Polo's truck sign, so the clean-up can end with the yard empty instead of a stack of bags at the curb.

A last mow and a trim

Before the grass goes dormant, a final mow and edge tidies the lawn up. Shrubs that grew out of shape in the summer can get a light shaping, though save any hard cuts for late winter. Evergreen hedges can be tidied now, and flowering shrubs are better left alone until after their next bloom.

Fertilization is on Polo's list of services as well. Ask what makes sense for your grass and your calendar, and don't assume every lawn needs the same thing at the same time.

Questions to settle before the crew arrives

• Are the leaves being hauled away, or left in the back corner of the lot?
• Should the beds be blown clean, or cleared all the way down to soil?
• Do you want fresh mulch afterward, or will you handle that yourself?
• Is there a limb or a dead tree you want looked at while the crew is already there?

Answering those up front keeps the estimate honest and the result what you pictured.

What to expect from the crew

Customers say Polo texts when he is on the way and often sends pictures once the work is done. Amie wrote that if Polo has a full schedule, "he always try to fit you into the schedule." Fall is busy, so don't wait until the week of the first freeze to ask.

Want a clean yard going into winter? Call or text Polo at (903) 245-6122 and ask for a free fall clean-up estimate.