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Autumn Tune-Up: Getting Your Lawn Ready For the Fall

September 30, 2026September 15, 2020 by The Parke Company

Spring and summer are usually thought of as the time for landscaping, what with all of the extra daylight and the general theme of growth. Winter is usually reserved for snow maintenance and preparing for the upcoming growing season, leaving autumn lost in the shuffle. It doesn’t have to be that way, however, as there are many projects to tackle that will make a world of difference when it comes to landscaping. From planting new flowers to getting the grass prepared for the winter or making your own compost for later use, the number of things to be done in the autumn is almost endless. It is something the professionals here at the Parke Company are skilled in, and if any of the following tips sound like something you would like done to your home or business, we can definitely give you a hand.

How to Prepare Your Lawn for Fall

Out With the Old, in With the New

One of the things you can do to make your landscape ready for autumn is to plant new, appropriately fall flowers. I know what you’re thinking – fall is hardly the time for planting new plants, but there are many species of flowers you can plant to shake things up. For example, perennials such as chrysanthemums, or for something a bit more healthy, echinacea. The kind of plants you are looking for are the ones that can deal with the extreme heat the mid-Tennessee and Nashville areas have, while also being able to survive some of the colder temperatures we see as well. As a bonus, many of these plants come in more autumn-worthy shades, such as purples, yellows, and oranges

Dotting the I’s and Crossing the T’s

Fall is also the perfect time to take care of those little things that have a way of building up during the year. Trimming the trees, one of the many tree services the Parke Company does, is a great example of something to do in the fall. As we have discussed before, collecting the now falling leaves to start your own compost pile is a great way to prepare for the upcoming spring. The compost, which creates a nutrient-rich additive, will then be used as mulch, which has many uses. Plus, any kind of cement – an area of landscape design that often gets overlooked – could use a look. Before the weather gets colder and the snow and ice take their toll on the ground, look for any kind of nicks, divots, or pot holes to be filled in. These kinds of preventative tasks will make your life a lot easier when the calendar rolls around again.

Fall is the perfect time to get things done around the home, and for one final push to make your lawn look the best it will for several months. The Parke Company is here to help in any way we can, from offering advice about planting new flowers to servicing the trees and bushes on your home or business’s lawn. There’s a lot to be done, and we would love to help you get started.

Winter is Coming: Getting Your Lawn Ready

September 30, 2026September 14, 2020 by The Parke Company

As more and more pages are torn from the calendar, we get closer and closer to winter. Recently on this blog we have been discussing the importance of getting things prepared for the impending season of cold winds and snow, but there is one area that we really haven’t discussed: lawn care. When combined with the harsh heat the Nashville and Middle Tennessee area receives right before the winter, the grass outside your home or office is really going to take a beating in the coming months. There are several things you can do to minimize the hurt, however. With that in mind, here are some tips for taking care of your lawn as the seasons change, brought to you by the professionals here at the Parke Company.

How to Prepare Your Lawn for Winter

Getting Low

The first and one of the most important things to do is to start lowering the blades more and more each time you mow the yard. Lowering the blades while mowing helps the grass get acclimated to a shorter length, so it’s not all happening at once when winter comes. You don’t want to have high grass during the winter months for several reasons. For one, the longer the blades of grass, the more surface area each individual blade will cover when it gets tramples. Have a lot of these and it will choke out what is underneath all the more. For another reason, small animals such as mice like to hide in tall grass during the winter months, and the little critters love to eat the roots and otherwise damage your plants.

It is for these reasons that it is important to rake the falling leaves right away. Leaves that are left alone too long will kill the plants underneath them because they block all the sunlight and have a tendency to absorb the water that should be going to the grass. Instead, bag the leaves up and leave them for a leaf removal service or keep them and create a nutrient-rich additive that will be extremely beneficial when introduced to the plants. Also keep in mind that anything left on the lawn after the first snow is going to leave dead spots, so make sure to remove any larger logs or dead trees first.

Prepare Yourself

Grass loses a lot of nutrients during the late summer months thanks to that scorching heat, so it is a great idea to add fertilizer before the first freeze of the year. The nutrients will stay in the soil all winter long, feeding the grass and helping things stay healthy until spring rolls around again. This is probably one of the most important things you can do, because otherwise when the snow melts for the final time, your grass will be yellow and dead and generally gross looking.

It can be difficult to remember all of the things that need to be done to keep your lawn in tip-top shape, but that is why we are here to help. Let the pros in grass health and lawn care here at the Parke Company help ease your burden by taking care of it.

Cleaning Things Up: Easy Tips to Make Your Lawn Look Better

September 30, 2026September 14, 2020 by The Parke Company

While the weather is nice, you might be taking advantage of it by spending more time outside. Not necessarily doing yard work and the like, but just resting easy and appreciating what you have. Of course, you might be on the opposite side of the equation, which finds you inside looking at everyone else’s wonderfully manicured and generally better looking yard. You might be experiencing a sense of regret, or maybe the desire to do better next season. Luckily for you, making the lawn look nicer is a very easy thing to do, and taking a nice looking lawn to the next level (both metaphorically and in some cases literally) is something that the professionals here at The Parke Company are skilled in. We are happy to share our knowledge of ways to make everything look a little bit neater and nicer, and hope that you think of us the next time you have landscaping design work available.

How to Make Your Yard Look Its Best

Managing the Numbers

One of the easiest ways to make things look nicer is to plant the same kind of flowers in greater numbers. This goes against the school of thought that says you need to mix several different types of flowers together for visual variety, and while there is some truth to that, having a lot of one type of flower makes for a better punch. Think about the field of poppies scene from The Wizard of Oz. It makes things look bigger and bolder. If you then apply this principle on a larger scale, by alternating large swathes of the same flowers or plants across your lawn, things are going to look pretty great. You don’t even have to employ the exact same plants; if you want to change things a bit, make sure you are repeating something. People like repetition. It is just one of those things that stands out to the human eye, so take advantage of it. If you are concerned about the late season and planting new plants, worry not – the Parke Company has access to a lot of plants, including perennials, that will still grow.

Clean it Up

One of the easiest things one can do is to make sure everything looks neat. Do you have trees, or large patches of bushes? Trim them. Cut them to different sizes to give the eye new levels to look at. A well groomed bush is something everyone likes to see. This advice can be applied to the rest of your lawn too. Leaves are falling, so make sure you are raking the lawn on a regular basis, and either use them to make a healthy, nutrient-rich mulch to then apply to the grass, or bag them up and use a leaf removal service. The point is, putting in just a little bit of effort will make a world of difference.

If the idea of some yard work is enough to make your throat close up, then maybe you should think about using a service. The Parke Company is skilled in a lot of areas, including tree services, landscaping design, maintenance, and more. We are happy to help in any way we can, and everything will look amazing when we are done with it.

Let’s Get Festive: Decorating Tips for the Holidays

September 30, 2026September 14, 2020 by The Parke Company

October is the beginning of the holiday season. You have Halloween, followed by Thanksgiving, and then right on into Christmas and New Year’s, to say nothing of all of the little extra family gatherings that exist along the way. While it’s nice to decorate for the seasons, and a little bit of holiday cheer can be just the thing to take your lawn to the next level, it can also wreak havoc on the health of your plants and grass. Keeping everything nice and healthy is something that we here at the Parke Company believe is crucial, not just because a healthy lawn is something that will make you happy, but also because you have spent so much time working on it all year, why stop now? With that in mind, here are some tips to make your yard look holiday-appropriate, while also maintaining the proper level of care for the green and the growing.

Tips to Decorate for the Holidays

Light and Fluffy

Possibly the most important thing you can do to make sure your lawn is not damaged is taking a look at the weight of any decorations you set out. The heavier they are, the more damaging it will be to the grass underneath it. If (and possibly when) it snows, this issue will be compounded even further because there is no way for the grass to get any air and it will die, leaving large, ugly yellow patches come spring. So, while the Nativity scene probably looks nice, it might be better suited somewhere else than the front yard.

If you do want to keep the statutes and other decorations up, try for something lighter. This also goes for the trees. Hanging anything heavy from them, or anything that has the potential to get icy and heavier – such as a string of Christmas lights – can put too much stress on the tree, leading to potential damage. Preparing for this by trimming the tree and checking for branch stability first is a must.

Light it Up

Something else to think about is the lighting. Using a lot of lighting, such as string lights or LED projectors, might look nice but they can be a drain on your energy bill. Plus you run the risk of an electrical fire, especially if it is a traditionally dry Nashville fall, where everything is brittle and ready to blaze up at a given moment. One way to avoid this is to check the connections on any lighting you use to make sure it’s safe. Of course, if your lawn is properly watered on a regular basis, like through the use of irrigation, that also helps minimize the damage.

The holiday season is a great way to try some new landscaping design techniques, but it can also be an easy time to forget what makes for the best lawns: a healthy and conscientious approach. Remember to keep the health of your lawn in mind when decorating this holiday season, as it will pay great dividends come spring.

All That’s Left are the Leaves

October 9, 2026September 14, 2020 by The Parke Company

It’s that time of the year again in Nashville, when looking out your window leads to images of a ragged-looking lawn covered in the dead and dying, instead of the nice, tidy, and trim emerald grass you are used to seeing. Yes, we are living in the days of autumn, when the leaves are falling in full force, leading to weekends spent cleaning up waste instead of doing literally anything else. This might not be a problem when you have a small area to clean up, but even that can take hours. Now imagine how much time it will take to cover a large area, and that is just dealing with the leaves. There has to be an easier way to makes things look nice! Luckily for you, there is. We here at the Parke Company are professionals at making life easier, because if there is one thing we learned from our youth, it is to “work smarter, not harder.” With that in mind, here are some ways to ease your mind about the amount of yard work the fall season brings.

How to Clean Up Fall Leaves

Mowing Down the Competition

When it comes to dealing with leaves, the gold standard has always been the simple, humble rake, and while there are some positives to raking, like the amount of time you get to spend outside, breathing the fresh cool air, it can be a real pain. Plus you have to bag the leaves up afterwards, and you end up spilling a lot of them on the ground and need to do the whole thing all over again (although we here at the Parke Company are happy to remove the leaf bags for you). There is a better way however, and that is to use a mower. Now I know that sounds like it would make more of a mess, but if you get a mower with a mulch bag on it, you can save the mulch and use it again as a nutrient-rich additive when it comes time to plant things in the spring.

Getting High

The important thing to remember when mowing with a mulch bag is to make sure the blades are not too low to the ground. At this point in the year the grass has stopped growing, so cutting it too close to the ground can cause irreparable damage to the grass underneath. Set the blades on the mower to the highest setting so you know you’re only going to mow up the leaves. If you are concerned about the risks, you might want to look into the landscaping services offered by the Parke Company, although you should do it quickly, as this is a busy time of the year for us.

We understand that raking leaves, either into those heavy duty bags or into a big pile for jumping into, is one of those time-honored fall traditions. We are big believers in honoring traditions, but this is one of those times when you need to think about what is best for you and your lawn. Mowing and mulching is definitely the more efficient option, but raking is not bad either, as it still gets the leaves up and away.