Winter Storm Preparation Tips
Snow Placement
Wintertime in New England is a tough time for any landscape. You can prepare your landscape as much as possible for the cold winter months and tough storms that will come (if you haven't already, check out our article about fall to dos), but all of that can go to waste if you are not careful and mindful of your landscape during a storm.
It is important to plan ahead before a storm, and even when designing a landscape, to figure out proper places to push, blow, or shovel snow. You should stake the hardscape around your property before the winter season to give your snow removal team the ability to know where roadways and paths are during a storm so they do not plow, blow, or shovel into your landscape, tearing up grass, perennials, and shrubs. Even if protected by string, mesh, or some type of structural box, your snow removal team should avoid disturbing your shrubs by placing snow on top of them.
If your shrubs were not tied and heavy snow weighs them down, you may be tempted to go out there and shake the snow off the shrub to help it stand up straight and avoid damage. This may actually be detrimental to your shrubs and stress them out more. Your shrubs will naturally come back into place when the snow melts. They will come up gradually with the slow rate of the melting snow and hitting them with a broom and quickly popping them back into place may stress the shrub and/or lead to breakage.
Ice Melt
Ice melt is an important part of making sure your property is safe before, during, and after a storm. Though improper usage can damage even the most prepared landscape.
The first step is making sure you have the right ice melt for your surface. There are many different types of ice melt that you can buy (solarized salt, rock salt, calcium chloride, magnesium chloride, potassium chloride, urea, and blends). Ice melt formulas that combine solar salt and anti-corrosion agents are less damaging to concrete and vegetation when compared to Magnesium Chloride and Calcium Chloride based ice melters. Once you have the right ice melt for your property you want to make sure you are applying it properly. You want to keep ice melt off of grass and flower beds and in general 2-4 ounces of product should be used per square yard of surface.
You never want to use rock salt on your concrete as it will damage the concrete by increasing water absorption, leading to cracking. The other products listed above will create a brine on your surface, which generates heat to melt the ice.