If you're like most homeowners, you work hard to keep your outdoor living environment as attractive and functional as possible. Most yard and garden area serve a variety of functions for the average family. Vegetable gardens put food on the table, lawns provide a pleasant aesthetic as well as a place where active children and pets can work off some of their energy, and shade trees help keep both the inside and outside of the home cooler in summer and provide protection from the weather in winter.

Now that autumn is here, however, you're probably looking forward to a reprieve of several months from yard work. Before you put your gardening tools away for the season, there are several tasks you should complete to ensure that your outdoor living space will look and function its best during the coming spring and summer season. Here's what you should do before closing and locking the door on your garden shed:

Plant Bulbs

Spring-blooming bulbs such as daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths are one of spring's most welcome sights. These bulbs need to be planted in the fall because they need to experience a period of cold temperatures before they can bloom. If you plant a few bulbs now, you'll be glad you did when winter comes to a close. 

Clean Up Garden Beds

After the first frost or two, your garden beds should be ready for a thorough cleanup. Most annual plants are programmed to set seed and die once the cold weather comes, so remove the dying or dead vegetative material and scatter a few seeds around if you want seedlings in the spring. The roots of perennial plants go dormant in the winter, and their foliage dies back, but it grows again in the spring, so all you need to do with them is cut back the dying stems and leaves and cover them with mulch to provide winter protection. 

Apply Mulch

The last thing you should do before hanging up your gardening gloves is to apply a layer of mulch to your flower beds, vegetable garden, and around the base of specimen shrubs and trees. As mentioned previously, mulch serves to protect plant roots during winter, but they also provide the soil with nutrients, help keep weed seeds from sprouting, and prevent soil erosion due to heavy rains and rapidly melting snow. As an added bonus, mulch gives yard and garden areas an attractive layer of polish that provides a neat, pulled-together aesthetic. Chocolate brown mulch pallets, for instance, is a particularly attractive option for those who want to add some curb appeal to their home.