Home » Consuming Less » Simple Tips For A Mini Spring Yard Clean Up

As the weather becomes warmer and the days become longer, many of us are getting ready for a spring yard clean up. Here are a few simple steps you can take to clean up your yard for spring.

A before and after photo of a spring yard clean up.

The days are finally getting longer where we live, and while the temperature remains low, I can tell the seasons are changing. We live in a city, in an apartment with a small backyard. When we moved in, the yard was completely overgrown.

I have worked away and cleared out most of the weeds and debris. In the process, I was surprised to find bulbs that a previous tenant must have planted. And delighted to find a wild rose bush climbing over one side of our fence!

(Here are other ideas for simplifying consumption in the modern world.)

This spring we will fill in the main garden bed with native wildflowers that attract moths and butterflies. I would also like to build a small container garden for growing some of our own herbs and vegetables over the summer. Hopefully even some of the medical herbs I’ve been reading so much about!
But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Even though I did the major clean out a few months ago, the weeds have started to pop back up. The patio furniture I bought has become dusty and needs to be wiped down. And the soil needs to have the fallen leaves and debris raked out of it.

I need to do a small spring yard clean up, to make it feel fresh for spring.

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Ideas for a spring yard clean up

Prune/cut back overgrowth

Start with the easy wins. Pruning unwieldy bushes or cutting back overgrown trees will give you a huge boost of enthusiasm for doing the more tedious clean up work. That’s because once they’re trimmed back, the space already looks so much bigger and refreshed.

Find the patch in your yard that you want more sun to reach and trim back the plants around it.

In our small yard, there were a number of unwieldy bushes and trees that brought too much shade. I trimmed back most of them earlier in the year and the space immediately felt better after I did so!

Weed (an essential)

Weeding can be tedious but it also makes a huge difference, not only visually, but to the health of your flowers and other plants.

To make the weeding process faster, try weeding the day after it rains. This makes it easier to remove the roots of the weed.

I went through our yard and plucked out the rogue weeds popping back up. One of the benefits of having a small yard is that there’s minimal weeding!

Prepare the yard for spring seeding

If you plan to plant vegetables or flowers, you could start preparing your soil. This could be simply weeding the space, adding a big of compost, or even aerating the soil.

Our soil is very rocky and to give our flowers the best chance I could, I raked and began aerating the soil. I also removed some of the larger rocks I came across.

Repair fencing

If you have a fence that needs some TLC, take time to do what you can to fix it up. This will also make an immediate visual difference to your space.

Clean up outdoor patio furniture

If you have patio furniture, another easy win is to wipe down the pieces. Spring is an ideal time to fill up a bucket of hot soapy water and wipe it all down.

We don’t always notice how dusty and dull our outdoor furniture can become over the winter. A quick wipe down and freshen up will make everything feel more spring-ready.

Two chairs and a table in front of a firepit.

All in all, this mini spring yard clean up took me about three hours split between two days. I think it was worth the time invested! And I’m excited to plant the spring flower seeds in about a month when the weather is warmer.

Are you in the process of cleaning up a small outdoor space? I’d love to hear how you freshen up your space for spring.

(P.S. here’s a photo I snapped of what the yard looks like with the string lights on. I think it’s very romantic and I can’t wait to eat outside again.