7 Ways to Protect Your Commercial Property’s Plants This Winter
Before winter weather truly sets in, we recommend taking a few preventative maintenance measures to keep your properties looking their best and protect plants from possible damage from frost and snow. Spending a modest amount of time on upkeep will save you the potentially costly replacement of unhealthy plants and keep your clients’ grounds looking good. Here are a few of our top tips:
1. Zone In
Did you know that you can easily check the expected hardiness of the plants your growing? By getting to know your growing zone, you can better determine which plants are expected to survive and thrive in your part of Canada. From there, you can anticipate which plants are likely to need extra care and attention when temperatures drop. Plus you’ll be more informed when deciding which plants to include in future landscaping plans.
2. Take Time for a Trim
Tidying up grasses is an essential part of pre-winter lawn care. If you trim your grass short (as little as 2.5 cm) you’ll actively prevent lawn frostbite, and deter rodents from digging and nesting in tall grasses.
3. Prune Trees
As your trees lose their leaves, it’s much easier to identify problem areas. Take the time to spot and solve any issues like broken limbs, or unusual cracks around the trunks. Ensuring the health of your trees (before any big storms set in) is an important way to prevent major storm damage and avoid broken branches being strewn around your property.
4. Mulch
Take
advantage of mulches’ ability to insulate and deter frost from forming
around your tree roots. It’s up to you whether you want to purchase
mulch to place around the base of your trees or be economical (and
organic!) by raking and collecting fallen leaves instead.
5. Protect Young Trees
Young trees should be wrapped for the winter. Fluctuating temperatures and strong, low-angle sunlight leave new trees especially susceptible to sunscald and frost. For instructions on wrapping and winterizing young trees, you can watch Moon Valley Nurseries’ video, or chat with us about scheduling help.
6. Don’t Wait to Water
When the nights are cooling, it’s easy to imagine that you don’t need to put as much effort into watering shrubs and other plants until the springtime. However, it’s still important to keep your property well-watered. Consistently hydrating plants is a great defence against disease.
7. Be Smart with Salt
While it’s certainly important to keep your properties safe and accessible with the right snow removal, and ice prevention plan, it’s important to be savvy about how you apply salt. The main goal is to keep it away from the roots of your evergreens, and young trees in high-traffic areas. There are a number of ways you can protect your plants from road salt, especially protective burlap.
