While many times it’s the inside of the home that gets all the attention when it comes to staying clutter-free, it’s equally important to declutter outside the home to increase curb appeal and keep your lawn and garden looking great. Here are a few useful tips to declutter your lawn this summer.

Break out the Rakes

Springtime and early summer are the perfect times to thoroughly rake your yard for a couple of reasons. First, it helps remove leaf and stick clutter for a well-manicured looking lawn. And second, raking the grass helps to aerate the lawn and remove dead grass clippings from last year, which helps promote thicker growth. It’s especially beneficial to use a steel landscape rake rather than a plastic leaf rake because it aerates much more efficiently and handles big sticks much more easily.

Trim and Dump

Untrimmed bushes and ornamental trees add clutter to an otherwise great looking yard. Trim overgrown bushes and tree limbs using the tools of your choice, such as manual or electric hedge trimmers, tree trimmers and chain saw. If you’re inexperienced at pruning hedges or trees, just focus on hitting the longest pieces rather than trying to shape the plant.

Once the pruning is complete, load up the scraps into your landscape dumpster or rent a dumpster from a local rental company. Depending upon the size of your yard, a 10 or 20-yard roll off dumpster is probably adequate to clear out the yard scraps.

Declutter the Plantings and Flowerbeds

Inspect your flowerbeds and areas containing smaller plantings with a sharp eye. Pull out the dead flower stalks and plants from last year as completely as possible. Early spring is the ideal time to do this because it helps the new season’s flowers to grow and bloom properly. Summertime works as well if you’re behind the ball.

Toss the dead flower stalks and plant scraps into your landscape dumpster or compost pile to keep the flowerbeds looking clean and debris-free.

Sift through Landscaped Areas

Although it’s a painstaking process at times, it’s important to declutter any areas decorated with mulch, bark, stones, gravel and similar landscaping materials. This means sifting through these areas to clean out leaves, large seeds, acorns, weeds, trash and grass. Using a leaf blower can speed up this process. Cleaning up the landscaped areas of a yard can really make its curb appeal pop.

Yard Décor

Yard décor shouldn’t take over a lawn, it should add to it. So, it’s important to think like a minimalist when it comes to decorating the yard. This means taking it easy on things like statues, yard gnomes, bird baths, signs and other gimmicky yard decorations. What does a pink flamingo yard ornament really add to the appearance of your lawn anyway? Less is better in this case. If you’re unsure about whether or not your yard décor is overkill, get your friends or neighbors to give you an honest opinion.

Joe Eitel is a web content writer for Hometown Dumpster Rental, the leading online resource for finding local dumpster rental and junk removal service providers nationwide. Search Hometown’s extensive dumpster rental listings for free and find reputable roll off dumpster rental companies in your area. Also check out the Hometown Dumpster Rental Blog for industry news, tips and tricks.