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Protect Your Pants And Plants
By Pamela B. King
Charles County Extension Agent
Ice can be hazardous to your health. It makes steps and walkways slippery and causes you to fall down. Salt spread over icy patches can help keep your pants and your face out of the snow. However, salt can damage your plants.
Where you use salt, the telltale signs appear in spring. Shrubs have leaves with tips that look burned. Lawns have dead spots. New seedlings in the flowerbed are stunted. As the weather gets warmer and drier, the symptoms worsen.
Salt is a corrosive chemical and can be very damaging to plant materials when it accumulates in the soil. Salts containing calcium or chloride, such as table salt (sodium chloride), are especially detrimental for plants. In ancient times, the Romans wreaked vengeance against Carthage by burning the city and plowing the fields with salt. Do not do the same to your garden.
Salt, packaged and labeled for ice removal, and other deicing chemicals is for use as spot treatments on icy patches, not for broadcasting over large areas. When used improperly, they can damage your plants and property.
Using other gritty materials suggested for traction may also be troublesome. Kitty litter works, but there are many different formulations, some of which may combine with other chemicals to damage concrete surfaces. Granular fertilizer, often suggested by gardeners, is a salt. If used in large amounts, fertilizer can cause the same problems as any other kind of salt.
So, if salt is only for icy patches and kitty litter can damage concrete, what can you do about your ice-covered sidewalk?
The best way to remove ice is the most difficult-chipping it off. When chipping ice, be careful; the combination of heavy labor and icy air can be dangerous. Wear several layers of lightweight clothing and a warm cap.
Clean sand applied to slippery areas provides more traction without causing corrosion to metals or damage to plants.
Take your time when walking over ice and use handrails when available.
Wear boots with treaded rubber or crepe soles.
Avoid painful (or worse) falls and protect your plants, too.
Art by Jessi Thibault, A Charles County Master Gardener Volunteer
For more information, contact Marcia Wakefield; 301-934-5403
Last updated: 03/20/2009