Preventing Salt Damage to Your Lawn and Landscape
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The first real snow fell across much of the northern US in the last week or so. When snow falls, out come the ice melting products. Salt can be very detrimental to lawns and landscape if not used carefully. If you do plan to spread some, use it carefully. Try to keep the ice melting product on the paved surfaces and off your lawn and out of your landscape beds as much as possible.
There are several types of ice melt products. Some of these products claim that they will not harm your plants, lawn or your pets. These are products like calcium chloride or magnesium chloride, but if you use too much, it can still cause damage. Most people end up using rock salt to melt the ice and snow on their sidewalks and driveways. One of the major reasons could be the cost. 25-lb. of rock salt costs around $7.00 where as a 25-lb. bag of “environmentally friendly” ice melt product runs about $18.00.
You can carefully apply whichever ice melt product you want on your own sidewalks and driveways, but you don’t have much control of what and where your city may fling their salt products. Some cities apply a brine solution to the streets to help prevent the snow and ice from sticking to the street. If there is a major snow event, the brine does not help very much.
Unfortunately some of the salt will end up on lawns. For the most part, the melting snow and subsequent spring rains will wash the salt down into the soil and not cause much damage. If your landscape is close to the street, it could end up with a coating of salt. This is especially true with low growing evergreens. Although it may be too late now, placing a barrier around your landscape bed will help deflect the salt. Burlap is also a good choice for a screen to keep salt away from the landscape beds.
Sand is a good alternative to using salt and will lessen the chance of slipping. Just remember, sand is usually moist when it is packaged. If it is left outside, you will have a 50-lb. block of sand that won’t be helpful at all.
Dealing with snow is just a way of life for those who live in the northern climates, but even the folks down south can experience some cold weather. In all honesty, I would rather have to deal with snow then streets covered in ice. Most southern areas don’t even have salt spreading equipment, so waiting until it warms up is the only thing to do.
Winter officially starts on December 21. The one good thing about that day is the amount of sunlight we receive starts to increase a little bit each day. It is a small blessing when you are shoveling 12 inches of snow off your driveway.