Welcome back, readers! Like clockwork, the holiday season comes and goes and soon after, the new year is here — bringing along those brutal cold and blustery winter snowfalls! Gardenalia offers eco-friendly snow removal! When ice, snowflakes, and the winds of winter blow, it’s time to talk snow removal! Below are a few environmentally friendly tips when removing snow. We’ll also include a few facts on why salt isn’t necessarily the best option. Let’s get started!

Snow Removal Tips

So first up: SNOW! When falling, snow can be romantic and picturesque. A beautiful, soft landscape of white wonder, right? However, once the sun pops up and the gray slush deepens, you’re only left figuring out who will shovel.

In order to lighten the load, here are some of Gardenalia’s snow removal tips:

• Plan a few days ahead of an incoming snowstorm and schedule snow removal with a local landscaping services provider. Believe it or not, most offer affordable seasonal, flexible pay-per-service plans and other great home or business options.
• When planning your landscaping design for Spring, consider edging options that shape your driveway/garden areas to establish plowing boundaries.
• Next, consider an eco-friendly salt alternative (more info below)

Environmentally-friendly De-icer vs. Salt

A little salt on your french fries? Yes! A dash on your homemade garden fresh tomato salad? Absolutely! Putting salt on your yard’s sensitive tree roots? NO! It can make them rot. And we know how salt impacts the undercarriage and other parts of our cars. Plus, without setting proper edging boundaries, salt can destroy a favorite garden spot. NO THANKS! Plus, too much salt over time can begin to damage parts of your lawn’s unique soil structure.

De-icing Tips

• First, consider an eco-friendly salting alternative like Gardenalia uses. We use → Landscapers Choice® Ice Melt! Here are a few (of the many) benefits from their website:
  • Landscapers choice has an IB-9 BOOST™ which is a proprietary, organic substance that will reduce corrosion rates by 70-80% compared to other ice melters.
  • The new formulation reduces damage to your home’s concrete and metal by forming a protective coating to prevent other ingredients from entering into the pores of the surface area.
  • The combination of IB-9 BOOST™ and CMA (Calcium Magnesium Acetate), is an environmentally friendly corrosion inhibitor. Landscaper’s Choice® is one of the least corrosive ice melters out there.
• Next, keep areas clean from piles of roadway salt and snow. (For those of you in Pittsburgh, contact us for more info on winter maintenance plans and flexible pricing options.)
• Lastly, if you end up sticking with salt, make sure to water around the tree or bush roots that were exposed during Winter. Doing this in the Spring helps to break apart and remove lingering salt chunks.
• In the meantime, enjoy the beautiful snowfall views from INSIDE your home and leave the Winter maintenance up to us! Until next time, we’ll be here plowing, de-icing, and working on new landscaping designs and projects for this coming Spring!

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