Winter is when everyone starts moving indoors, but at the same time, it wreaks havoc on your landscaping with ice and snow. So, if you live in a region with freezing climates, it helps to prepare with these winter landscaping tips.

Winter Landscaping Tips to Prepare Your Lawn

Yes, the colder it gets, it’s time for the lawn to take a long winter’s nap. Still, you can do some things to ensure there is no damage to your yard when spring arrives:

  • The important thing is to rake up the fall leaves and remove any debris on the grass. When doing this prevents items from smothering the grass leading to stunted growth of your new grass or even killing it. 
  • After removing all the leaves to debris, cut the grass short, about three to 3.5 inches. Still, your final cutting needs to be at least two inches as it protects new growth while minimizing breeding spots for pests.
  • Another essential thing is fertilizing and aerating the ground before the first frost. While the grass goes dormant, it still regrows the nutrients from the fertilizer when it starts warming up.  

Winter Landscaping Tips to Protect Shrubs and Trees

Here it is essential to protect your different flora species against the cold. To help shield trees and shrubs’ roots, provide them with mulch around the base. Not only will it keep the root system protected, but it will also help control erosion with loss of water. 

We recommend a two-inch layer of mulch to help reduce water loss and maintain uniformity for the change in soil temperatures. Another important thing is to keep the mulch close to the base of your plants. The reason is that it can lead to fungal infections when retaining too much water.

Now is the best time to grab those shears to prune your trees and plants before they go dormant. Trimming away branches and stems on plants helps promote new growth in spring. Furthermore, removing branches hanging over a roof or near wires also prevents accidents during a storm.  

The best time to do pruning is in late winter to prevent the wounds from being exposed for too long before new growth starts. Also, if you have evergreens growing in the landscaping, it helps to add anti-transpirants to your plants to reduce water loss in the leaves.

Here good old burlap wrapping helps to protect the foliage from winter winds and salt sprays. As mentioned, removing branches from trees helps prevent unforeseen damage. You can tie back branches to avoid snow overloads, and it helps remove the snow from lower limbs by brushing and not shaking it off.

Lastly, apply some wire mesh to the base of your young trees to protect them from strong winds or even animals wanting to gnaw at them.

Final Thoughts 

These are a few winter landscaping tips that help protect your garden in winter. Implementing the above can minimize the salt damage to melting agents for snow to prevent drawing water away from the roots. To get rid of the buildup of salt, it helps to flush it out using a lot of water. So, get started today or invest in a landscaper to help prepare your garden for the freezing temperatures.