The number of season you experience, depends on where you live. Our son was stationed in Hawaii when he was Marine, and he was frustrated with the lack of seasons. Hawaii is pretty much the same all year round, with some rainy months. He longed to for fall, winter, spring and summer. In Arkansas, we have a pretty mild winter usually, but the lawns all go dormant and the leaves drop from the tree in the cool fall days and nights. Then it warms up for a nice spring, where everything greens up outdoors. Our summer days trend from hot to very hot. Usually August is so hot, we spend lots of days indoors in the cool air conditioning. Just a few hours to our north, we used to live in Springfield, Missouri, where we experienced all four seasons almost every year.

Maintaining your HVAC

We all know our home needs some special care as the seasons change. Some you may do yourself, while others you may hire out. You’ll get the best service over the long run from your HVAC system if you have a annual maintenance program on it. Your HVAC professional will then routinely check and maintain your HVAC system, to keep it operating at it’s best. Your HVAC is a big home maintenance expense, so this just makes sense. At the very minimum, you should have a regular schedule for changing your filters!

Landscape and Curb Appeal

Your landscape is most impacted by changing seasons, so it requires lots of love and care to maintain your home’s beautiful curb appeal. As fall winds down to winter, make sure all the dead leaves that have piled up in the corners of your property are bagged up and disposed of. Before your winter months end, you may need to trim back some trees and plants. We had to cut back our crepe myrtle trees by late February, plus cut back the dead liriope to make way for new growth on both. Once spring arrives, we need to freshen our mulch and plant some flowers for spring color.

Your porch and patio furniture needs a good cleaning and maybe some new pillows to allow you to enjoy your outdoors home completely. Let me know what else you do to prepare for changing seasons!