Okay, school will be out soon and it will be the perfect time to plan a family yard day. We do this every year. We have a very large yard (about an acre) and it is difficult to maintain over the winter. Due to generally mild winters, we have a rainy season instead of getting much snow, and the ground quickly becomes saturated and tends to stay that way. This keeps us from performing maintenance as often as we’d like to, and leads to a lot of work come spring.
We also usually have a certain amount of storm damage to take care of such as fallen limbs or small trees that need to be removed. We also seem to grow rocks. So, we gather up the kids and make a day of caring for our yard. We cut grass, whack weeds, pick up sticks and rocks, remove any other debris, plant flowers, pick up and organize toys and things, and put our yard in order.
We try to make an adventure out of it, and the kids like to compete to see who can collect the most rocks. We usually have a pretty good size pile at the end of the day, and we use these in the yard. I surrounded a large tree with a circle of medium sized rocks and then filled the space between the rocks and the tree with small stones. I also lined the walkway to the deck with rocks and filled in the path with stones. I have similar projects planned for this year, but we have to do our annual maintenance day before I can move on to aesthetics.
Try having a yard day this year and get your entire family involved in fixing up the yard. It can be fun and your yard will look great. Plan a picnic or barbeque for the end of the day, and enjoy your yard when finished.