The Parke Company

Fall is a time for cool temperatures, pumpkin spice everything, and unfortunately, tons and tons of dead leaves. Brush and leaf pickup is not only difficult and time-consuming, but figuring out how it works in your area can also be a challenge.

The Importance of Leaf and Brush Pickup

Fall leaves are beautiful—so much so that people flock to forested areas to take in the sights as they change from green to vivid ambers, reds, and yellows. But there’s something a lot less appealing about the changing leaves, and that’s the knowledge that in a few weeks, you’re going to be collecting them all for pickup. Even if your home or business doesn’t have too many trees, their leaves can really pile up. Compound this with a fall breeze blowing your neighbors’ leaves onto your lawn and you’ve got quite a mess on your hands. This is what makes Nashville leaf pickup so important to property owners everywhere.

Leaves deprive your lawn of sunlight, making it nearly impossible for grass to grow. Without sunlight, grass cannot create nutrients, and it dies. It doesn’t take long for a leafy lawn to resemble a forest floor. Leaves accumulating on the lawn trap moisture, leading to the growth of fungus and mold. When you keep leaves on your lawn all winter, this moisture can also overwhelm the grass beneath them. This is why prompt and thorough leaf and brush pickup in Nashville really matters.

It’s tempting to forego the whole act of raking and gathering leaves. After all, leaves are perfectly natural, right? It’s true that fallen leaves do create a whole new ecosystem of their own in forests and unoccupied areas. These decomposing leaves create food and nutrients for plants and animals alike, but they also choke out grass. This means that taking the natural approach to falling leaves will leave you with an unsightly yard come spring. Even if you’re okay with being the leafy lawn on the block, you might not be so content with the other issues leaves bring with them. Dead grass leads to some major issues for homeowners, such as erosion. When spring rolls around, heavy rains can sweep away a lot of your lawn without the strength that grass’ roots provide. This can lead to dangerous conditions, making it hard to navigate without tripping. It can also expose the roots of trees and other plants, and when you add in the decomposing leaves, this also invites pests right into a tree’s most vulnerable area.

Nashville Brush and Leaf Pickup

In the city and surrounding suburbs of Nashville, brush and leaf pickup schedules vary depending on where you live. You can consult the website provided by the city to see when leaf and brush pickups begin for your neighborhood. This site is useful because it shows a map that delineates when brush trucks will be around for you. If you live outside of this area, your town’s website should indicate their leaf and brush pickup schedules if they are available. In Nashville, brush pickup is pretty straightforward. Place your brush near the road in accessible piles. For leaves, Nashville requires that they be placed in biodegradable paper bags. If you’ve ever bagged leaves before, you might be aware of how this makes leaf cleanup even trickier.

Once you get your leaves collected in an area, you’ve got another step before the chore is over. Use shovels and other tools like pitchforks to pick up leaves and bag them. Many leaf-bagging devices are available to assist in bagging leaves, and these are especially useful if you’re doing it alone, as they help hold the bag upright and open for you. Municipal services like brush and leaf pickup are great because they give us an easy way to dispose of leaves. Without this service, where would all the leaves go? In the past, many people would burn leaves and brush each fall, which always led to a streak of house fires and some really smelly, smoky neighborhoods.

Fall Landscaping Services

How do you get rid of leaves in Nashville? If you aren’t interested in putting in hours of work, you’re in luck. Working with a local landscaping company like The Parke Company is an excellent way to make sure your lawn is leaf-free before winter. With comprehensive fall cleanup services, we will handle the raking, blowing, and brush collection for you. For many folks in Nashville, fall is a busy time of catching up on work before winter or spending time with loved ones and doing fall activities, not chores. If you don’t want to pick up all of your own leaves, don’t! We’re here to help. With our specialized equipment and decades of experience, our landscaping experts can make quick work of even the messiest yards this fall.

We properly dispose of leaves and brush, where we compost what we can of leaves and dead plants and create wood chips with the collected brush. Whether you’re concerned about the look of your lawn or not, fall leaf cleanup from The Parke Company should be on your list of priorities before winter takes over. As we’ve learned, leaves can do a lot more than lead to patchy lawns in the spring; they can harm your trees and other parts of your landscaping. If you want to keep your lawn looking green and healthy (and ensure that your property is safe), fall leaf pickup is a crucial service that we can provide.

Take Care of Your Leaves the Easy Way

Ready to learn more about what The Parke Company can offer you this fall in terms of leaf and brush pickup in Nashville? Contact us today for a free consultation and estimate on any landscaping services you may need before winter.

Weeding is an important task year-round for your garden and your lawn. But it’s especially critical to tackle weeds in the fall for a variety of reasons, which we’ll explore right now.

1. Fall Cleaning

Fall leaves already create a big headache for homeowners looking to keep their lawns clean and healthy, so it might be a bit of a hassle to tack on weed control in this already busy time. But when you incorporate weed control into your fall lawn care routine, you actually reduce the amount of work you’ll need to do later in the year. It’s easiest to kill weeds in the fall because they’re in the early stages of development. Weeds are very hardy and can survive a lot, so taking them on when they’re weak and still taking root is a great way to ensure they’re dead before spring. Many winter annual weeds, like henbit, chickweed, and purple deadnettle, start germinating in the late summer, reaching the early stages of growth in the fall. Cleaning up leaves from garden beds and lawns takes away places for weeds to hide, ensuring you catch them quickly and early.

Since Nashville winters often don’t get too cold, we’re stuck with weeds year-round that can become especially visible and disruptive in the winter months when lawns are dormant. Removing weeds by hand is the most effective way of getting rid of them if they’re visible, and it only requires simple tools and some elbow grease. If you came here wondering, “Should I bother pulling weeds in the fall?” then wonder no more! The answer is a resounding yes. Fall is the best time to manually remove weeds, but more than that, it’s the best time for weed prevention, too. Read on to learn how The Parke Company can help you prevent weeds with herbicides.

2. Take a Weed Inventory

The best way to prevent weeds from forming this fall and winter is to know what you’re up against. Not every lawn and garden bed is susceptible to the same kinds of weeds. Different types of grass come with their own common weeds, so a one-size-fits-all weed treatment plan doesn’t exist for diverse Nashville lawns. While you’re killing weeds in the fall, take note of what kinds of weeds you’re seeing. Whether you’re removing henbit, chickweed, crabgrass, or deadnettle, each has its own treatment plan. Manually weeding is a lot of work, but when you couple the process with weed prevention, it should dramatically reduce the amount of effort you need to put forward next year. Sometimes, when you prevent one weed, a new type of weed takes its place. This is why a yearly weed inventory is so helpful—it can really help identify the problem you may face in the spring long before the weeds get out of hand. Fortunately, many weed prevention herbicides can treat multiple types of weeds, among other lawn and garden issues.

3. Weed Prevention

Weed prevention is important for your landscaping year-round, but fall is the best time to apply herbicides and make changes to prevent weeds from growing. Annual weeds spread by seeds, and winter weeds spread quickly and can be relatively hard to see until they grow quickly in the spring. You can spray for a variety of weeds in the fall, and it really is the best time of the year to tackle winter weeds. It’s important to note that herbicides for the garden and lawn are different, so ensure you’re using the proper type of chemicals for each area of your landscaping. Herbicides can be dangerous if applied incorrectly, so this is one area that you should rely on the pros for. At The Parke Company, we’ve been applying chemical weedkillers to lawns for years, and our experience means that you and your home will be safe from any issues these chemicals may cause. Expert precision also ensures that weeds are fully controlled and aren’t going to sneak into other areas of the lawn. Applying herbicides evenly can be difficult without specialized equipment, so a landscaping company is your best bet for getting that high-quality application. The weed killers applied in the fall are called preemergence herbicides because they target weeds before they grow in the spring. These weed killers are different from the kind you may use in the spring or summer, so ensure you’re using the right product in the right season.

4. Reduce Pests and Increase Moisture

Weeds are disruptive on their own in a garden or lawn, depriving your plants of nutrients and growing quickly over the grass line. But weeds are far from just unsightly nutrient hogs for a lawn or garden; they can also invite pests that a healthy lawn wouldn’t have. Many pests like cutworms that can harm garden plants and vegetables survive on eating weeds when vegetables aren’t available. Weed availability increases the presence of pests in your garden year-round, making it more likely that your lawn and plants will see pest damage in the spring and summer.

Weeds are incredibly resource-hungry and will choke out grass and other plants with their constant consumption of water. Even in their early stages of development, perennial and winter weeds can soak up hundreds of gallons of water in the soil. This deprives the soil of the hydration it needs to support grass and even trees, causing health issues with your lawn and other garden plants. Dry soil can cause a whole host of problems that extend far beyond brown patches in the lawn. When soil is dry, it’s far weaker against wind and rain erosion, making it fall apart and sweep away in a rainstorm. Weed control in the fall prevents pests and keeps your lawn more hydrated—it can also prevent the land from deteriorating.

Tackle Winter Weeds in the Fall

Weeds are a source of visible and invisible issues that can greatly harm your lawn and other plants, so prevention is critical. The fall is the best time to tackle weeds, so what are you waiting for? Call the experts at The Parke Company to see what we can do for your lawn this year.