When winter is just around the corner and you need to put your landscaping equipment up for the season, there’s a little more involved than simply putting it back in the garage. Let’s take a look at the best way to winterize your landscaping equipment:

Gasoline-Powered Equipment

Tools that have a gasoline engine need more care when they’re stored over the winter. When gasoline sits in your engine’s system for an extended period, the fuel ages, causing a residue to stick to fuel jets. When you try to start it in the spring, it won’t start and requires disassembly and cleaning to work again.

Draining the tank and allowing the engine to run until it’s out of fuel helps prevent this. If you’d rather not drain it, add fuel stabilizer to the tank and run the engine a few minutes to get the stabilizer through the system. It’s also important to change the oil, remove soil and debris and remove rust and re-paint those areas before storing small engine equipment for the winter.

Equipment With Blades

Lawn care equipment that has blades also requires special care. Make sure to remove any debris from the blade, sharpen it, remove any burrs using a 300-grit sandpaper and then cover it a thin layer of oil (vegetable oil is great for this purpose) before storing them for the winter. The oil helps prevent corrosion while they’re in storage and keeps them ready for use first thing in the spring. If you’ve got resin or pitch stuck to the blade, you  may want to try using alcohol, kerosene or another solvent to loosen it up before removing it with a wire brush or steel wool.

Spraying and Compressed Air Equipment

If you have spraying equipment, it’s important to clean the nozzles before it sits for the winter. This helps prevent clogged nozzles that form as the equipment stands idle. Fill the tank one quarter full with a mild dishwashing solution and spray out, then drain upside-down. Once it’s dry, put a few drops of oil in the pump cylinder and work it a few times to protect it over the winter. Store nozzles and tips in kerosene or diesel to prevent corrosion.

At Simply Green Lawn Care, your lawn is our passion. From lawn care to fire ant control, we’ll help make your home’s landscaping beautiful. Contact us today for a lawn evaluation and free estimate.

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Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from everyone here at Simple Green Lawn Care! Thank you for all your love and support this year. We are excited to see what 2015 brings!

Seasons Greetings,

Simple Green Lawn Care Team

Tis’ the season for still warm weather…which might be the case for now but soon enough it will get chilly in the south so making sure your landscape is ready for it is very important! Get a jump on your lawncare cold weather landscaping prep so you can focus on the most important thing – hot cocoa!

Start With Winterizing Trees and Shrubs

Getting your landscape ready for winter can be as easy but make sure you are prepped. Give your landscape a walk around and address any broken tree limbs, weak branches, damaged or dying trees and scrubs. If these are addressed before and snow and ice hits, they can be a headache later if they fall or break.

Here are a few ways to prep your landscape for cool weather:

• Hydrating your landscape before winter is crucial. This will help prevent desiccation.
• Make sure your watering and mowing schedule is adjusted for the cooler months.
• Wrap new trees and scrubs with covers
• Protect plants and trees with exposed roots by adding a layer of mulch at the base

Have any questions! Give us a call today! Want to stay connected with the Simply Green team? Connect and follow us on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter!

Image: By Gabriel Santiago

This Thanksgiving the Simply Green team is thankful for friends and family, yummy food on the holiday table, and exciting time to kick back and relax. We hope you spend this time with those you love and cherish!

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With chilly months ahead and dropping temperature already beginning, we need to start thinking about how to get our lawn and garden prepped and ready for the fall and winter months. The team here at Simply Green Lawn Care has put together a few great tips to get you ahead on your landscape. 

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Halloween is tomorrow! Can you believe it? We know it can be enjoyed by children and adults but as a homeowner are you ready for all the kids running through your yard for candy? We have created a Halloween yard tip guide to help you prep your yard for all those trick or treaters. This will be not only safer for the kids but safe for your lawn.

1. Light Up Your Lawn

If it’s light up pumpkins, outdoor lights or something fun to mix up illuminating your property, it will help children navigate an unfamiliar yard.

2. Clear A Trick or Treat Walking Path

With the falling of leaves, rough driveways or the dark night, it can be hard for kids and families to navigate the path to your door so try to make it easier by clearing a path.

3. Be Cautious

We know outdoor projects can take time to complete but make sure any nails, workspace materials or left over clippings are moved out of harms way. The last thing you would want is a “real bloodly” costume coming to your door.

5. Halloween is FUN!

After making sure all the “danger zone” hazardous materials are moved away, make your yard fun with the spookiest, scariest and most creative decorations!

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Image via freedigitalphotos by samarttiw

In today’s service spotlight, we are covering Tree and Shrub Care! Landscape plants, unlike lawns, mature slowly often over the course of many years.  Damage or malnutrition can sometimes take a growing season or more to correct. For this reason it is best to treat landscape plants proactively to ensure that they will grow to their full potential. Simply Green Lawn Care Plus provides an annual tree and shrub care plan to help your landscape plants thrive at your home.

Want to stay connected with the Simply Green team? Connect and follow us on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter!

By Bartosz Bąk

The cooler weather of approaching fall makes it a great time to improve the appearance of your Atlanta, GA lawn. You’ll find it’s one of the best times of year to fertilize, control weeds, seed and carry out core aeration on lawns, particularly tall fescue. If your grass is looking a little wilted after summer or moss and thatch is becoming a problem on the lawn, then a major fall rescue operation should be put in place to ensure it recovers before next summer’s warm weather arrives.

Fall Treatments for Your Georgia Lawn

Some of the principal lawn treatments to consider this fall are:

• Seeding – If your tall fescue lawn is patchy and bare in places then seeding should be one of the first jobs you carry out this fall. Sow seed onto prepared ground to a depth of up to 1/2 inch, you should use around five pounds of seed to every 1,000 square feet of soil for over-seeding and you should expect germination within 14 days. Fall is a great time to sow tall fescue seed as the cooler weather encourages development of a strong root system
• Core Aeration – This will reduce thatch and help loosen the soil and improve drainage. It involves pulling plugs of soil from the lawn, ideally using some form of aerating product. Simply punching holes into the grass will actually increase compaction of soil over a period of time, so should be avoided. If you haven’t over-seeded, mid-September is a great time of year to think about aerating the lawn.
• Fertilization – Once any seedlings have germinated and any aeration to the lawn has been carried out, the final fall task to keep your lawn looking great is fertilization. October is a great time of year to fertilize a tall fescue lawn and will help maintain and strengthen grass roots and prevent cold weather damage, while a starter fertilizer will help newly germinated seeds to create vigorous root systems.

It’s important to treat your lawn as early as possible in fall, particularly if you plan to seed areas of grass. Grass is easily damaged during colder spells, so getting your Atlanta, Georgia tall fescue lawn in great condition through fall is an important garden chore. If you don’t have time, call Simply Green at 770 923-0387 and our professionals can soon sort out your lawn for winter, ensuring it’s lush and in great condition.

This season it’s all about watering and mowing to keep a green and healthy lawn. We know that a nice and green lawn is super important to you and it’s just as important to us. In today’s post, we are discussing two of the most important pieces of having a successful lawn – Watering and Mowing! With hot summer and a potentially cool fall and winter making sure you are watering correctly for the season is essential. In addition, the way you mow, frequency of mowing and height can all affect the success of your lawn.

Watering

Simply Green’s water management program, using Hydretain, reduces your outdoor watering up to 50% and improves the health and vigor of your lawn.

Mowing

Don’t forget that mowing is an art! You may love mowing your lawn, you may dread mowing your lawn, or you may have someone else mow your lawn. In any case, there is an art and a science to a healthy lawn.

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We know that you take pride in your lawn and work hard to make sure it’s green, free of weeds and looking HOA approved but it’s a ton of work! After a long week at work, the last thing you want to do is lawn work all weekend. What if we told you that you could cut down that time spent?

In today’s post, we have put together a few great tips on cutting back on the hours you spend in your lawn.

1. Let your grass grow

We don’t mean “never cut your grass” but cutting your grass too short can actual cause more work for you. The shorter you but it the easier it is for weeds to grow. This means cutting your grass less can prevent time spent on your lawn.

2. Chill out on the fertilizer:

It’s true that fertilizing your lawn can give it great color and growth but you can over do it. Too much fertilizer can harm your grass. If you aren’t sure about how or when to fertilize, contact our team and we can help you figure out the next steps!

3. Know your grass

Knowing what type of grass you have will give you an idea of how high-mantinance it can be. Making a change on the type of grass you have could help cut down on the maintenance.

Of course one way to take all the hard work off your plate is to simply hand it over to a professional. At Simply Green Lawn Care we can help you get the type of lawn you want! If you would like advice or assistance with managing unwanted weeds please contact us at 770-923-0387, or click here to request a FREE estimate.  Follow along on Facebook and Twitter!