Winterizing Your Landscape in Lincoln, NE

Winter in Lincoln doesn't ease in — it lurches. You'll get a 60° afternoon and a single-digit night in the same week. That freeze-thaw whiplash, not just the cold, is what damages a landscape: it cracks water lines, heaves plants out of the soil, and splits tree bark. A few hours of prep in the fall prevents a spring full of expensive surprises. Here's the checklist we run.

1. Blow out the irrigation system (most important)

If you have an in-ground sprinkler system, this is non-negotiable in Nebraska. Any water left in the lines, valves, or backflow preventer freezes, expands, and cracks the components — and a split backflow assembly is a few hundred dollars plus a soggy spring repair. The system has to be cleared with compressed air ("blown out") before the first hard freeze.

2. The last lawn feeding of the year

If you do one fertilizer application all year, make it the fall one. A slow-release nitrogen feeding in mid-October, while the grass is still green, gets stored in the roots over winter and powers a thick, early green-up next spring — without the soft, disease-prone growth a spring feeding causes. It's the single highest-value thing you can do for a cool-season lawn, and it's covered in full in our fall cleanup checklist.

3. Put the beds to bed

• Refresh mulch to 2–3 inches. Mulch isn't just looks in winter — it insulates roots and buffers the freeze-thaw swings that physically heave shallow-rooted perennials out of the ground. Keep it off plant stems and tree trunks, though.
• Cut back what should be cut, leave what shouldn't. Trim mushy, disease-prone perennials (peonies, hostas, anything with mildew). Leave ornamental grasses, coneflowers, and sedum standing — they hold winter interest, feed birds, and catch insulating snow.
• Weed one last time. A weed pulled in November is a few hundred you don't fight in May.

4. Protect trees and shrubs

• Water until the ground freezes. Evergreens especially keep losing moisture through winter wind. Send everything into winter well-watered — a dry root ball going into a hard freeze is what kills "winter-hardy" plants.
• Wrap young, thin-barked trees. Maples, lindens, and fruit trees can split from sunscald — winter sun warms the south side of the trunk, then it refreezes at night and the bark cracks. A light-colored trunk wrap for the first few winters prevents it.
• Guard against rodents. Mice and rabbits chew bark at the base of young trees under snow cover. A mesh guard around the trunk stops them from girdling and killing the tree.

5. Hoses, hardscape, and containers

• Disconnect and drain every hose before the first hard freeze, and shut off and drain exterior spigots so the line behind the wall doesn't freeze and burst.
• Empty and store ceramic/terracotta pots. Water left in a glazed pot freezes and cracks it. Empty them or flip and cover them.
• Leave the snow shovel away from the pavers' sealer schedule — don't seal a patio late in fall; let it wait for spring when there's time to cure. Do clear leaves off hardscape so they don't stain.

Want it handled before the freeze?

Fall and winter prep bunches up right before the first hard freeze every year, and the calendar is unforgiving once the ground locks up. We handle full fall-to-winter prep across Lincoln — final feeding, mulch, bed cutback, tree protection, and haul-off — usually bundled with a fall cleanup. Get on the schedule before the rush.