You’ve listed your Haliburton real estate with The Trillium Team, one of the top 1% of realtors in Canada, because they have the most 5-star reviews on Google of realtors in Haliburton County. With the help of their expert guidance, you have ensured that the inside of the house or cottage is decluttered, spotless, gleaming, and staged to perfection. Congratulations!
Now what about those gardens and flower beds? In due season, they are showpieces in their own right, adding so much beauty and splendour to your surroundings. You are confident that they will add value to your Haliburton property for sale. Therefore, no doubt you are thinking about cleaning them out to get them ready for another spring, so that your real estate shows to advantage.
Don’t do it. Not yet. Knowing when to start and how to spring clean your gardens and flower beds is important for the health of your local Haliburton ecosystem. This is due to the fact that many pollinators, including bees and butterflies, overwinter in the very dead material you may be itching to remove.
You should wait until there’s been enough time for all those insects to wake up, and that usually means you need consistent daytime temperatures of around 50 degrees F (10 degrees C.)
If you are embarrassed about the state of your gardens, put up a cute sign that tells prospective buyers and real estate agents what you are doing – letting the bees sleep! Conscientious buyers will be grateful for your stewardship of the land and appreciative of your attention to the environment. When buyers see how much you care about your Haliburton property as a whole, they will be confident in their decision to purchase.
If you simply cannot make yourself wait, there are a few steps you can take to spruce up your gardens for real estate showings that will not harm the ecosystem unnecessarily. The object to keep in mind is that by removing dead material too early, you risk destroying many pollinators, who ride out the cold weather there and emerge in the spring to work their magic.
When clearing out old foliage, look for stems showing signs of bee activity such as ends plugged with mud or plant material. Leave those stems in place for nesting bees and remove only those empty, hollow stems. If by chance you do happen to remove stems where bees may be nesting, move them to a corner of the garden where the bees can wait for a few more weeks to emerge. These stems can be left on the ground or tied in bundles and hung from trees or fences.
Keep an eye out for chrysalises and cocoons when you are pruning back shrubs and other woody material. If a branch has one of these tenants in residence, leave it in place for now until the occupant has moved out.
Butterflies, ladybugs, and other beneficial insects nest in piles of decaying leaves. If you must rake, move the piles to a corner of the garden and leave them there undisturbed for a while.
Do not add mulch to your beds until it is warm enough that the in-ground nesting bees and other insects have woken up and moved on to do their good work. This will help protect habitat in the spring and ensure that you have a robust and healthy pollinator population and overall garden ecosystem. Not to mention, gorgeous lush gardens and flower beds! Now your Haliburton real estate has been totally prepared for sale, inside and out, and you are ready to take advantage of the red hot sellers’ market in Haliburton county!