It is that time of year… when you wake up in the morning and find that your car has magically turned yellow overnight. No, it is certainly not fairy dust! It is the ever-popular pollen. When you see it, that is how you know that the seasons have begun to change. The trees are beginning to bloom, grass is starting to grow again and everyone seems to be walking around with puffy eyes and sniffles. Mine, as well as many others, understand that it is seasonal allergy time, but more importantly, it is a fantastic time to begin your spring cleaning regimen – outdoors. The first thing you might want to do is take a walk around your property and do a visual assessment of what needs to be done. During the winter months, it can seem easier to ‘hibernate’ indoors and not worry about the world outside your front door. When it is cold outside, the last thing you want to do is traipse around your property looking for all the things that your yard is screaming for you to pay any attention to.
One place that is always a good place to start is by assessing your driveway and sidewalks. Areas that lead up to your home aid in the aesthetics of your property from the street and give people an instant assumption about how well the remainder of the house and property are cared for. David, the General Manager at a concrete driveway contactor says that yard debris and cracks that are filled with grass and dirt along the driveway or sidewalks can make the house look “unloved” and uncared for. He also added that by simply cleaning the cracks between your driveway and sidewalk slabs, you can give your home a quick, freshened-up look without having to call companies for a potentially costly repair. This can be done by using a leaf blower or by doing it the more back-breaking way, on your hands and knees and you dig it out manually. Alright folks, I do not know about YOU, but I am all for the leaf blower doing all the work. The bonus with a leaf blower is that you can also blow away any pollen that has settled as well! (Yay!) Yard debris should also be cleaned up. It can be anything from tree parts, like pine needles and pine cones, to more cumbersome tasks such as cleaning up bushes that have gotten overgrown, with time. When you take the time to tend to this sort of thing, you can instantly give your property a facelift, without spending a lot of money.
Check out a wonderful example in the video covering the WHY of cracks!
Another excellent thing you can do is power wash your sidewalks and driveways to give them a quick and easy fresh look. By power washing them, you will be able to remove fungus and mildew buildup, as well as remove any stains that are created from vehicles that leak fluids onto their surfaces. You can purchase solutions in your local hardware store that help to remove stains and oils and help you protect the concrete or asphalt, in preparation for the season. When you make the decision to power wash your driveway and sidewalks, you are also getting a close look at the structure, to ensure that it is free of cracks, sinking slabs, or broken pieces that can cause tripping hazards. Taking care of these things earlier in the season allows you tend to bigger issues you find as soon as you find them.
One other excellent thing you can do at the beginning of the season is when you do your initial property clean up, you can start out by trimming the edges of the sidewalks and driveways with a 1/2” deep, trimmed edging which helps to keep the grass away from the sides of the concrete. It also looks cleaner and keeps grass from growing over the sides. If you take the necessary steps to clean your property and get it season ready, you will save yourself headaches and a lot of money, in the end.