Helping Your Loved One Care For Their Yard This Fall
Senior caregivers can provide the physical home care your loved one needs, but your family can support your loved one through seasonal chores and other helpful tasks
Fall is pretty much the perfect time of the year, especially in New Haven and Woodbridge, Connecticut. Millions of senior Americans look forward to the season as the leaves change colors, the temperatures become mild, and the markets are bursting with healthy harvest produce from local farmers.
Nonetheless, fall also comes with certain challenges, especially for older adults who require assistance from senior caregivers. When fall arrives, one of the biggest challenges for those seniors is performing yard work. While professional caregivers are able to provide the non-medical daily living assistance seniors need to live safely at home, seasonal chores often fall to family members and other local friends.
If you are a family caregiver, chances are you’ll be involved in preparing your loved one’s yard for the winter. In this week’s blog, we’ll explore some tips for providing meaningful assistance for your senior loved one through seasonal chores:
Fall Yard Work Checklist
Before you start with any yard work, first you need to assess the situation to determine what needs to be done. It may be best to write down a checklist and proceed by clearing items on your list one by one. This way, you will not miss a thing. To help you with the task, senior caregivers teamed up with home improvement providers to put together a fall yard checklist you might want to take into consideration:
- Check window and door seals
- Check the roof for any faulty shingles
- Turn off outdoor water
- Drain outdoor spigots
- Drain sprinkler system and store hoses
- Rake leaves
- Remove the leaves from the gutter
- Fertilize cool-season lawns
- Prune plants
- Plant trees, shrubs, bulbs, roses, and cool-season annuals
- Cover the plants with a protective layer of mulch
Depending on how much time you have, there are several choices you can make. Senior caregivers recommend managing fall yard work in one of these ways:
- Together with your loved one: If Mom or Dad would like to participate in yard work, you can perform more difficult tasks such as cleaning out the gutter or raking leaves while they focus on less demanding activities like pruning plants, for example. Yard work can be a great type of physical exercise for your senior as it has all the properties of a low-impact regimen.
- By yourself or with the help of other family members: In case your loved one is unable to get involved with yard work for any reason, you can opt to handle the work on your own or with the help of siblings, close family, or even good neighbors. For major projects in the yard, make sure to put aside a weekend or two. If you live in the area, you can finish all the work little by little, whenever you find the time.
- Hire a professional yard service provider: This is certainly the easiest solution if you can spare some money, especially if you don’t live near or you don’t have enough free time at the moment. To find a quality service that will perform the yard work at a fair price, make sure to do some research and check reviews.
Visiting Angels of Woodbridge, CT, is a leading provider of non-medical in home care services for seniors. Our office serves New Haven County, Fairfield County, Westchester County and all five boroughs of New York City, NY. To learn more about the in-home living assistance services provided by our staff of compassionate caregivers, please call our Newington office at (203) 397-6890 or contact us for more information.