Getting your yard ready for summer grilling and backyard parties takes a few months when done properly. That means you start planning how you want the yard to look while snow still covers the ground in South Shore, MA. Grab a blanket, and your tablet computer, and settle in before a roaring fire to plan your perfect summer yard during the frigid Massachusetts winter.
Make a List of How You Want to Use Your Yard
The projects you use to ready your home for summer vary by how you want to use your yard. According to Planner 5D, start the process by making a list of the ways you want to use your backyard. For example, a list might include:
- A play area for pets and children
- Dining area for picnics or bar-b-ques
- Grilling area or full outdoor kitchen
- Seating areas for enjoying the view, such as a gazebo or deck.
Each of those uses requires a bit of preparation, even if you already installed the gazebo or outdoor kitchen.
Hire a Landscape Architect
Perhaps your yard includes a patio, deck, and grill, but the yard areas lack unity. If you did not already use the skills of a landscape architect to design the yard areas and plant them, consider doing so now, states Architectural Digest. These outdoor space experts can create a unifying design that brings together divergent elements built at various times. They may use garden beds, hardscapes, such as stone pathways or sidewalks, or shrubs and other plantings to do so. These yard designers also create natural dividers that set part of the yard off from the others, such as for a children’s playground.
Add Seating and Dining Areas
In some cases, a homeowner won’t have installed seating areas or a deck yet. If the yard lacks such an area, hire a deck contractor or general contractor to build the structure you want. Typically, homeowners either add a patio, deck, gazebo, portico, or pergola. Which you choose depends on how you want to use your yard. For example, a gazebo offers a round or square enclosed seating area with a roof and half walls, but a pergola lacks a roof and walls, consisting only of framing posts.
Have the Yard Treated for Pests
As soon as the snow melts and spring arrives, search for “pest control near me” to have your full landscape sprayed for the types of bugs that can ruin an outdoor event, including fleas, ticks, mosquitoes, and ants. When you use preventative measures to keep these insects away, it provides better results than waiting until a problem develops, and then addressing it. By that time, you and your summertime guests have probably been bitten and spent part of your weekends scratching at the bites.
If you have pets or will host guests who do, it increases the need for early measures for flea and tick control in South Shore, MA. If you treat the yard before pets use it in spring, you can help prevent fleas and ticks from entering your home riding on the backs of your pets. Once one flea or tick makes it indoors, you’ll need to go through more than one pest treatment to get rid of them.
Getting Started with Your Summer Yard
Winter offers the ideal time to plan your summer yard. Contemplate its large, empty space while the snow lays on the ground. Make dream usage lists and research landscape architects, building contractors, pest control experts, and other needed tradespeople now. Interview contractors now, so you get first dibs on hiring the best in spring.