A Fall Cleanup in the Upper Beaches Neighbourhood

Tidying Up in Beach Hill

After a brief September lull, I'm in full "fall cleanup" mode until the end of November. It's true that I'm not dealing with summer's heat, humidity and bugs but the challenge now is to stay warm! 

This post brings us to the east-end Toronto area called "Upper Beaches" or "Beach Hill" and covers a fall cleanup for a property owned by an out-of-town landlord. Since tenants usually don't bother or worry about garden maintenance, I anticipated that the back and front gardens would be "weedy" and, of course, they were. Luckily, the area wasn't too large for me to handle.

Here are some "before" and "after" pictures of the backyard cleanup performed on this blustery and cold fall day:

Upper Beaches Toronto Fall Garden Cleanup Before 

Upper Beaches Toronto Fall Garden Cleanup After

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Garden Cleanup Before

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Garden Cleanup After 

Toronto Upper Beaches Fall Cleanup Before 

Toronto Upper Beaches Fall Cleanup After

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Garden Cleanup Before

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Garden Cleanup After 

Upper Beaches Toronto Fall Cleanup Before 

Upper Beaches Toronto Fall Cleanup After 

And the front....

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Cleanup Before 

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Cleanup After 

Upper Beaches Toronto Fall Cleanup Before 

Upper Beaches Toronto Fall Cleanup After 

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Garden Cleanup Before 

Toronto Beach Hill Fall Garden Cleanup After 

The shrub with the red foliage in the front yard pictures above is a doublefile viburnum (Viburnum plicatum f. tomentosum "Mariesii'). While it does get quite wide (easily 15 feet), it has excellent fall colour and its horizontal branches are covered with white flowers in the spring. If you have the space in full sun, this type of viburnum can be useful.

The trio of "failing" shrubs with yellow fall foliage are Fiveleaf Aralias (Acanthopanax sieboldianus). They are usually very tough plants and can handle a wide range of conditions. I suspect that they are hating it under the huge maple tree!

Big Time Weeding in Little Italy

Or "There's A Front Yard in There, Somewhere!"

At the end of every work season, I reflect back on some of nicer gardens I've worked in and some of the, well, not so nice. You may know some yards or gardens of the latter variety on your street; heck, you may even own one. That's o.k., I'm not here to judge but some cleanup jobs for me are simply more onerous than others due to the garden's size and amount of weeds, debris, etc. Occasionally, I'll just advise the prospective client that the scope of work is beyond what I can do and to hire someone else. There may be an awkward pause but it's better for me to walk away from this kind of project than take it on, find I'm overwhelmed and do a less than perfect job.

This post covers a recent cleanup I didn't walk away from (although when I first saw  the garden, I was tempted to!)

The owners of this property in Toronto's trendy Little Italy area didn't do much maintenance for their front yard this season, it's safe to say. The somewhat rectangular area is about 20 feet wide by 60 feet long and, more or less, covered with clumps of mature goldenrod, Yellow Avens, sow thistle, aster, burdock and lemon balm (all perennial weeds). Whatever remaining grass is overgrown and patchy.

They hired me to "tidy up" things so here are some pictures showing how the front yard looked like before and after my efforts:

Toronto Little Italy Front Garden Cleanup Before

Little Italy Fall Front Garden Cleanup Before

The view from the sidewalk

Little Italy Fall Front Garden Cleanup Before

Little Italy Fall Front Garden Cleanup Before 

From the sidewalk, you may see the overgrown clumps of grass, sucker shoots from the base of the small maple tree, four mock orange shrubs and impressive stands of goldenrod and asters. What's not visible are several very-much-alive stumps of Siberian Elm (weed trees which were cut down in the past) and lots of thistles.

Mockorange shrubs in the forefront, 
goldenrods and asters behind them 

Toronto Little Italy Fall Front Garden Cleanup Before

Above is the view leading 
towards the front door

And the view looking from the 
front door towards the street 
(Photo credit: picture taken by the clients) 

7 Hours Later....

How do you eat an elephant? Take one bite at a time, as the saying goes. In a severe clean up situation like this one, I start cutting down the stalks and leave the roots alone temporarily. Once all the vegetation above ground has been cut and carried away, I'll go in with my long handled shovel and start digging out entire root balls. All the mature weeds are perennials so just leaving them with their tops pruned looks nice but, of course, ineffective with dealing with them on a long term basis.

Fortunately, the weather was nice, dry and cool. Tackling this in the middle of July would not be fun!

Little Italy Fall Front Garden Cleanup After 

Little Italy Fall Front Garden Cleanup After

Little Italy Fall Front Garden Cleanup After 

Little Italy Toronto Fall Front Garden Cleanup After 

Toronto Little Italy Fall Front Garden Cleanup After 

Toronto Little Italy Fall Front Garden Cleanup After

Toronto Little Italy Front Garden Cleanup After 

Toronto Little Italy Front Garden Cleanup After

A Roncesvalles/High Park Fall Cleanup

Let the Fall Cleanups Begin...

October is around the corner which means, dear reader, you'll be subjected to more posts about fall cleanups. I realize showing you pictures of weeds, leaves and garbage around my clients' properties isn't too interesting but at least you'll see the types of gardens I work in around the city ranging from the the good, bad and ugly.

The label "fall cleanup" is used by many landscape companies at this time of the year to describe "raking" up leaves (almost always with a leaf blower, if this makes sense), cutting down soon-to-be-dormant perennials and wrapping up evergreens in burlap shrouds. In other words, a completely unnecessary exercise. 

Yes, I realize I earn a good chunk of my income performing these types of exercises and don't intend to be hypocritical. But more often than not, I suggest to new clients that fall cleanups (and, worse, the term "winterizing") are not "required" and in more naturalistic gardens, even to be avoided.

All this to tell you that this post isn't covering a typical fall cleanup but about a cleanup that just happened to occur in autumn. I'll explain below....

High Park Toronto Back Yard Fall Cleanup Before 

I met the client, Doug, through a referral (thanks Nicole!) and his situation is common with many of my other clients: he travels a lot and has no time or interest in maintaining his gardens. When I get requests from new clients this time of the year though, it usually means that no weeding or pruning has been performed all season and, yet again, this was the case here.

High Park Toronto Back Yard Fall Cleanup After

Over the course of a good six hours (and a little more), I tackled the front and back gardens of Doug's property in his Toronto's west end neighbourhood near High Park/Roncesvalles. Not many leaves were raked up (yes, I actually use a rake) since the huge Eastern Black Walnut (Juglans nigra) tree in the back isn't showing its beautiful yellow foliage yet but, more alarming, the heavy fruit were dropping periodically around me! I collected these green-husked fruits and tossed them out along with the other debris.

High Park Toronto Back Yard Fall Cleanup Before 

High Park Toronto Back Yard Fall Cleanup After 

High Park Toronto Back Yard Fall Cleanup Before

High Park Toronto Back Yard Fall Cleanup After 

Roncesvalles Toronto Front Yard Fall Cleanup Before

Roncesvalles Toronto Front Yard Fall Cleanup After 

In weeding and tidying up the two front raised beds, I left most of the blooming asters alone as bees and other pollinators were feeding. These asters self-seeded themselves and while I do consider them "weedy", I didn't remove them since they're beneficial now.

Roncesvalles Toronto Front Yard Fall Cleanup Before

Roncesvalles Toronto Front Yard Fall Cleanup After 

Toronto High Park Back Yard Fall Cleanup Before 

Toronto High Park Back Yard Fall Cleanup After 

Toronto High Park Back Yard Fall Cleanup Before

Toronto High Park Back Yard Fall Cleanup After 

Toronto Roncesvalles Front Yard Fall Cleanup Before

Toronto Roncesvalles Front Yard Fall Cleanup After 

Toronto Roncesvalles Front Yard Fall Cleanup Before

Toronto Roncesvalles Front Yard Fall Cleanup After 

After tidying up things, Doug should be good to go for another year!