With the recent snowpocalypse in NJ and much of the East Coast, I thought I would take a few minutes while snowed in to mention a few things that can be done to help protect your landscape from damage. In most cases, experts agree that you should leave snow on your landscape plants to melt naturally.
The plants are often more hardy than you might think. But in the event of a heavy snow you might want to take a broom and gently remove the snow from the branches of the very young newly planted shrubs and small trees. Doing this would protect them from any breakage due to the heavy weight of the initial snow and avoid problems with later icing or additional snow as we have seen over the last few weeks in February.
Very old trees and shrubs are likely to have insect or disease damage branches broken by heavy snow. Smaller reachable older shrubs can benefit from the gentle removal of snow, but in many cases trees due to their large size are on their own. Most times the branches that do fall off needed to be pruned anyway, so nature is really just forcing the issue. Hopefully this recent snow is our last for the season, but in the event it is not, take a few minutes from driveway and sidewalk cleanup to take a look at your plants and perhaps give them a slight snow removal as well.
Georgette Migliore is the Staff Horticulturalist and Customer Service Manager of Parker Homescape, a design/build landscape firm that has been recognized as one of the Top 10 Landscape Design/Build Firms in the United States and has been recognized locally by Design NJ Magazine, NY Spaces Magazine and The Suburban News. For information on Parker Homescape, visit their design portfolio: https://parkerlandscapedesign.com or call 908-490-0449
