• With a little work, you can have your yard looking tidy and presentable.coniferous lawn image by evvigo from Fotolia.com
  
  When the snow begins to melt in the spring, you start to notice the many areas of your yard that need cleaning up. The fall season also brings many yard-maintenance challenges. These are several ways, though, to spruce up your yard with minimal effort.
  
  

Early Spring Care

• By the time your grass is starting to grow strong in late spring, the patchy, brown spots have already been a problem for more than a month. Turfgrass Resource Center executive director Doug Fender says that grasses from warm and cool climates should be fertilized and aerated in early spring. He also advises fertilizing warmer-climate grasses with nitrogen-rich fertilizer throughout the summer, but to fertilize colder-climate grasses only once more, in autumn.
  
  

Flower Beds and Sidewalks

• Remove old mulch (leaves, wood chips) from the flower beds, or rake the mulch into the soil to amend the soil with organic nutrients. Edge the perimeter of your garden bed and sidewalks, which will prevent grass from growing over the cement, reducing walking space and creating an unsightly scene. Also, apply new mulch over the garden bed and around tree trunks to help retain moisture and keep the roots warm.
  
  

Mowing

• Begin each year with a sharp mower blade. Cutting the grass with a dull blade will tear at the grass rather than make a clean, healthy cut. Never remove more than 30% of the grass height at a time. Just like with any other plant, grass needs time to repair from being pruned, and heavy trimming will cause browning and possibly leave brown patches throughout the yard. In warm climates, the total grass height should not exceed 1 1/2 inches once the temperature has reached 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Cold-climate grass should be kept approximately 2 inches tall.
  
  

Watering

• Grass should receive at least 1 inch of water per week. If your region receives this much in rainfall, other watering won't be required. If the grass has dried out and become dormant, you can water heavily to revive the lawn. "Better Homes and Gardens," however, advises refraining from reviving grass if you're only going to let it fall dormant again.
  
  

Weeding

• The best time to attack weeds in the lawn is while they're preparing to go dormant. In northern, cooler climates, this time is during mid-autumn. In the South, grass typically falls dormant in late summer. Weeds steal water and nutrients, but will also take in chemical herbicides rapidly.
  
  

Early Autumn Care

• To prepare the lawn for autumn, trim back the grass slightly shorter than normal to help the ground dry out. Aerating the soil will help the grass take in water and nutrients for better growth the following spring. Scan your flower beds and remove dead flowers, flower heads and other debris scattered on the ground. Rake leaves together into a pile for burning or for city pickup, or use them as mulch for flower beds around the home. Also, collect and bundle fallen twigs and sticks to burn or to have picked up.