Fall Landscaping Tips For Property Managers

By Francine Fluetsch on September 30, 2016

It is officially fall! While this comes with a lot of festivities and excitement, it can also mean some extra landscaping maintenance on your property.

Whether you are looking for ways to redecorate your properties for residents, or just looking for ways to keep up with all of the work that comes with fall and winter, this article may be of service.

image via www.beautifulearthlandscaping.com

Leaves, leaves, everywhere:

When the leaves start falling, the Instagram pictures start going up of your residents playing in the leaves with their pumpkin spice lattes, their way of embodying the fall month. For you, however, it means figuring out how to clean up after all of the leaves.

If your property is on the newer side and you are thinking about what to plant, try and get trees that will drop their leaves at different intervals. If you have the same type of tree and all of them drop their leaves at once, it will be a lot of clean-up duty. If, on the other hand, you plant a variety of plants, trees, and shrubs to make the property nice but that also don’t all lose their leaves at the exact same time, you can save the headache of raking the leaves together yourself every two weeks or having to hire someone to do it.

A small amount of leaves on the ground and in the gutter won’t do too much, but if it all falls at once, the leaves can prevent light from reaching your grass and or small plants, which will cause them to die, and they will clog the drain pipes and gutters, giving you the pleasure of climbing up on the roof and unclogging that before the rain hits.

If you’ve already planted your trees and know that you do get a good amount of leaf fall throughout the season, a leaf blower might be a good investment if you don’t already have one. Leaves, especially when wet, will stain your concrete, and will begin to pile up in the resident’s yards, so going in and taking care of the leaves once or twice a month (or how ever often you think it’s needed) might be a good call. It will show the tenants that you care and are taking care of the place, and will make it last longer for the years of renting to come.

Fall pruning:

Some plants and trees in your property’s yard may need to be pruned for the fall season, but make sure to look up the exact tree or plant that you have and see how to do it/if it is necessary. Plants take a lot of care and effort, and if they are pruned incorrectly, they might not be blooming come spring.

The best idea for this, if you aren’t a green thumb, might be to hire a landscaper who can come in and do the fall trimming for you and get your plants ready to survive through the winter. Once you watch them and know which plants and shrubs can stand on their own and which ones will need to be tended to, you can decide if you want to keep having the landscaper do it every season, or if you want to have a go at it.

The property I lived at during my undergrad had a landscaper come in to tend to the rose bushes that were growing in our tiny yard, since roses really liven up the place but are a bit finicky when it comes to weather. The way they cut it gave us beautiful roses once the rain let up, so it’s definitely worth it.

If you are thinking of planting new items while also pruning, you can ask your landscaper which types of plants will thrive best in your area, for the longest amount of time and with the least amount of mess. For example, cherry blossom trees are gorgeous, but they only bloom for a brief period and then shed thousands of little flower particles, so that might not be the best tree option if you are looking for something low maintenance.

You also want to think about where you live in terms of what you should be planting. For example, in California, with our massive drought, it might be smart to plant some succulents or plants that don’t need a lot of water in general, because even though it’s now fall, we aren’t going to be seeing a lot of rain here any time soon, and this will help you conserve water and save money. On the other hand, if you live in a state where the rain is constant, you want plants that will thrive off the water and won’t drown and die.

Some thought, time, and care does need to go into the landscaping and upkeep of your property, but it will be well worth it. Some TLC goes a long way, and if your property looks nice, it’s one step closer to making it feel like a home for your residents.

Follow Uloop

Apply to Write for Uloop News

Join the Uloop News Team

Discuss This Article

Get Student Housing News Monthly

Back to Top

Log In

Contact Us

Upload An Image

Please select an image to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
OR
Provide URL where image can be downloaded
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format

By clicking this button,
you agree to the terms of use

By clicking "Create Alert" I agree to the Uloop Terms of Use.

Image not available.

Add a Photo

Please select a photo to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format