How To Prepare Your Memphis Landscape for Winter
It happens all the time. Clients will be thinking ahead to the spring and contact us about landscaping in the winter. It can be a bit of a gamble, considering that once you pay, you then have to wait for the next season. However, maybe you don’t have to wait through a whole season to try out some new landscaping techniques. There are a few things you can do in the winter that will provide a huge landscaping bonus all year long.
This is especially true in our East Memphis area. Generally, we don’t start having snow and freezing temperatures until January, and winters will generally be balmy by March. The techniques below shouldn’t be performed if a snowstorm or deep freeze happens the next day. This means that there is an even higher amount of opportunity for winter landscaping procedures in Memphis, though these techniques can be done anywhere.
Mulching
As long as there’s no snow on the ground, you can put mulch down on the ground no matter how cold it is. In fact, winter is a great time to touch up on mulch beds. Mulch can provide frost protection by insulating the roots of plants from winter snows. This, combined with rebuilding beds while your lawn is dormant, means that it’s the perfect time to build up your mulch beds.
Mulch as Plant Health
Soil, with the water and nutrients it stores, expands when it gets cold. This puts pressure on roots, harming your plants while they’re dormant. Not only does mulch prevent this, but it also blocks weeds from getting the sunlight they need to pop up in the spring. This means that adding mulch in winter can make a huge impact when spring comes. It can also halt not just the growth of weeds, but the premature growth of your plants. This keeps them from the stress of starting to grow, only to be frozen over when a frost comes back. The benefits that it provides your soil for spring make it worth preparing early in winter with mulch beds.
Mulch as Landscaping
Even if it didn’t provide health benefits (though it’s great it does), mulching during a lawn’s dormant period has a separate great landscaping benefit. During every other season, things like mowing your lawn or critters walking around disrupt the mulch that has just been placed. For high-quality, organic mulch, small animals might even be drawn to the fresh smells. When you lay down mulch in winter, you decrease the number of people walking around disturbing the beds. Snow should also help to push the mulch down, allowing it to withstand the wind. This means that winter can also have an aesthetic benefit when it comes to timing when to relay mulch.
Pruning
Pruning your plants is always important during every season when growth starts to get too long. However, there are benefits to doing it in the winter. During the winter, your plants will enter a state of dormancy. This means that your plants will be dazed and less stressed after a pruning. This also means that when your shrubs or trees are ready to grow again in the spring, they’ll be able to grow thicker leaves with the start of the season. This lack of stress is beneficial for the plant, meaning that a winter trim for the season also results in some spring benefits.
Pruning as Landscaping
When you prune plants, you’re not usually thinking about it from a plant health standpoint. There’s also a visual aspect. From a landscaping angle, plants being dormant means that they won’t regrow as quickly and won’t need to be pruned again for likely the rest of the season. Picking up clippings in the early winter also keeps them from falling and freezing on the ground. This means that there’s also a benefit to your landscaping to keep up your pruning through the winter season. You likely won’t have to do it that frequently in the winter, anyway!
Deep Root Watering
Something that can slowly hurt your trees over time is winter dehydration. It takes a while for trees to use the winter snow and ice as water, so over time, the roots can dry up without access to water. This means that before a freeze, doing a deep root watering can help your trees to be ready to weather a winter storm. It’s especially good for new trees with weaker roots, though it will help to keep any plants hydrated. When you look into deep root watering, check the weather forecast to make sure that the temperature won’t be below freezing for the next few days.
Planning Landscape Designs for Spring
Our final technique is something you can do any time of the year, including during freezing temperatures. If you don’t want to do anything physical or if there is a snowstorm, there’s still time to contact a landscaper and start designing future work. Though reviewing your property is important for landscape design, teams like ours can give you some initial feedback about materials and plants that will work with the Memphis area. This initial work can give you a lot of time to think about what you want for your landscape when spring comes.
The East Memphis Landscapers for Any Season
Whether for some winter work or for spring planning, if you’re in the East Memphis area, Victory Landscape Services is the perfect company to call. With every service we perform, from in-depth design to pruning and mulching, our expert practices will help to keep your lawn healthy throughout the year. If you’re interested in our work during any season, contact us today!