My wife loves to see things clean, neat and tidy. I have to say I agree with her. She shows how much you care about what’s around you and what others think of you. This raises a question. Can you do your spring cleaning early? As a lifelong resident of the Far Northeast, I’d have to say the answer to that question is a definite yes. The weather here is known for rapid changes. One day it can be 65 degrees and the next day it can be 20 degrees and snowing. We also get some pretty fierce winds in the spring of the year. Having said all that, I hope you can see where this takes you.
Let’s say you go out and clean up all the damage from winter snow, ice and wind storms on that wonderful early 65 degree day. The ground is likely still frozen, so it’s easy to get out on the lawn and do some work. The next day the temperature drops and the winds pick up and it starts to snow. Within a day or two you look outside and it’s like you’ve never done any yard work. It is littered with broken tree limbs and debris carelessly tossed by passing cars. You’re probably wondering at that point if it was worth the time you spent cleaning the day before or so.
So he decides to wait a few weeks until he is sure that the weather has finally improved and the strong spring winds have died down. Now all that’s left is for things to dry so you can get out on the lawn and do the cleanup work. At this point, the ground has thawed and the grass is quite soft. If you can step on the grass without sinking, that’s a good time to pick something up. Clean up old broken branches and trash and remove dead plants from the previous year. Any job like this is perfectly fine to do in the early part of the year. However, don’t be tempted to get out the rake and start raking your lawn of old leaves and dead grass right now. With grass so soft and wet, you run the risk of damaging it if you rake it too early. In fact, it can uproot grass and cause a lot of damage to your lawn.
Just take some time to review the situation and try to decide if you will do more harm than good by attacking your cleaning tasks too soon. You have been the maintainer of your property for many years, so no one knows property better than you.