If you want to enjoy green spaces all summer long, experts advise you to take care of them now

If you want to enjoy green spaces all summer long, experts advise you to take care of them now

With the arrival of spring, we spend more and more time outdoors, enjoying the grass and the blossom of trees and plants. But if you want the green spaces around your home to be a delight throughout the warmer months, you need to take good care of them. Rūta Aglinskaitė, works manager at Civinity Namai, a company that provides maintenance and management services for apartment buildings, advises on what green spaces are worth doing now.

Green spaces can extend life expectancy

Scientists have been studying the impact of green spaces on human quality of life and health for years. The results show that green spaces in residential buildings have an impact on the life expectancy of the people who live there, and in particular reduce the risk of premature death due to cardiovascular disease.

According to Chen et al. (2020), living in greener urban areas is associated with increased physical activity, improved mental well-being and reduced exposure to harmful environmental effects. In 2021, researchers Barboza et al. calculate that increasing green spaces in European Union cities could save almost 50,000 lives a year.

The importance of green spaces is obvious and taking care of them is not as difficult as it may seem at first sight. 

To enjoy a healthy lawn in spring you need to revitalise it

When spring arrives, it is essential to take care of the lawns in green spaces, as they are often contaminated with various organic matter and weeds after the winter, the soil is deficient in nutrients, water and oxygen, and some areas may have dried out.

The first step is to clean up the lawn by raking away leaves, branches and debris left over from the winter, and then to take good care of the soil by scarifying, aerating and fertilising the lawn.

“Scarifying your lawn is done with special equipment that scarifies the soil to make room for new lawn seedlings to sprout. Aeration, on the other hand, scratches the grass and the cracks in the soil increase the lawn’s water and oxygen permeability. Both are important to revitalise an ageing lawn that has been worn down by winter and eventually needs to be fertilised,” says the Civinity Home specialist.

If there are dry areas in the lawn, they can be rejuvenated by reseeding and mulching the dead areas, she says.

Spring is a good time to take care of flowerbeds and rockeries

Spring is also a good time to take care of your backyard flowerbeds by clearing them of leaves and needles left over from the winter, pulling out weeds, fertilising and spraying plants in flowerbeds and rockeries with products to protect them against diseases and pests.

“If you didn’t plan your planting in autumn, you can do it now. Once the leaves are raked back and the area is tidy, you can see the big picture of the green space and decide which plants are too many, which are overgrown, which need to be pruned, removed or replanted,” says R. Aglinskaitė.

Which plants can be planted in spring

To refresh your green spaces, you can plant new flowers that will delight you throughout the warm season.

According to Civinity Namai, the most common spring planting is frost-resistant flowers, as the air temperature is constantly changing and frost can still appear at night.

“Bulbous flowers such as lilies, irises, dahlias, dahlias, cannas are very suitable for the backyards of both apartment blocks and individual houses, as they emerge quite early and stay green throughout the summer and autumn. We also recommend planting buttercups and dahlias in the courtyards of apartment buildings, as they are not sticky and require little maintenance. When planning flowerbeds, we also recommend not forgetting shrubs that flower from early spring – forsythia and barberry are perfect for this,” says R. Aglinskaitė.

When tidying up your green spaces, don’t forget to sort waste properly

Litter collected from lawns and flowerbeds should be disposed of properly. “Civinity Namai reminds you that such bio-waste can be composted, disposed of in green waste collection bins or taken to composting sites.

“Green waste cannot be thrown into mixed waste bins and cannot be burned. As part of our environmental management of the apartment blocks we manage, we collect all bio-waste and dispose of it at designated landfill sites or collection sites, and we encourage others to do the same,” says a Civinity Namai specialist.