It’s likely by now you are nearing the day you lock up the shed for the winter… just don’t forget to pull out the trusty snow blower!  With that said there are a few things to consider here as the season winds down.  Hopefully most of these chores are done by now…

Late Fall Tips for Your Lawn:

1. Clean up those leaves!   A heavy collection of leaves over the lawn will retain moisture and matt down the turf below it making a bed for snow mold to thrive.  Snow mold is a disease which can do considerable damage to your turf, damage you likely wont notice until Spring.   
2. Mow Low!  Make that last mowing of the year about a ½ inch lower than usual.  You want to cut lower in the fall to prevent the grass from being matted down.  Long blades of grass matted down by the snow can cause snow mold as well.

Late Fall Tips For Your Landscape:

1. Pruning!  If you have some unruly trees and shrubs that could use a good down-sizing, now is the time to do it.  You may want to avoid some of your heavily Spring flowering shrubs and trees, but most others can benefit from a dormant pruning. 
2. Deep Root Feeding!  If you’re picky about your landscape, you’ve likely already cleaned your beds of leaves and debris this fall.  This is a great practice to keep your landscape aesthetically pleasing.  However, in nature, trees and shrubs’ leaves fall to the forest floor to decompose into the soil creating a high nitrogen nutrient source for the roots below. 
   
   This fall is a great time to try to replace that naturally occurring nurturing by fertilizing your trees and shrubs.  One option is purchasing nutrient spikes at your local garden center to pump nutrients into the root zone.   Another option some lawn care providers and full service landscapers offer is Deep Root Fertilization.  Besides the expertise you’ll receive from a professional, the equipment used will run at roughly 200psi pumping nutrients into your soil while also helping to break up and loosen some of that soil, having a similar effect to aerating your lawn.  This gives the roots more of a chance to spread out and fill those pores created.