After you’ve built a beautiful home in Lake Oconee with PAXISgroup, it's wise to look into ways to protect your investment. One big part of protecting your investment involves looking after your landscaping—plants, lawn, trees—during the winter.
Whether you’re a native of Lake Oconee or someone from out of state who has decided to make this magnificent place their forever home, you’ll benefit from our guide. We’ve compiled a few essential winter lawn care tips for protecting Lake Oconee landscaping this winter. With our help, you’ll have a flourishing garden year-round.
Frost and freeze damage: One of the biggest challenges homeowners face in Lake Oconee regarding their landscaping in the winter is frost and freeze. Frost is well known for harming plants, especially their root systems and foliage, which often causes your plants to brown, wilt, and die. In addition, freezing temperatures can damage delicate trees and plants that can’t adapt to cold weather.
Soil compaction: Freezing temperatures and rain are not a good combination. These weather conditions lead to soil compaction, making it significantly harder for your landscaping—plants, and trees—to access water, air, and nutrients.
Limited growth and dormancy: In the winter, most of your plants will enter dormancy, a phase of restricted growth. Unfortunately, if precautions are not taken, this can delay spring growth and affect the appearance of your garden.
Ice and snow weight: When it snows in the winter, it is often accompanied by ice, and both can weigh heavily on your plants, leading to snapped branches and severe damage to young trees and shrubs.
Weeds and pests: Believe it or not, quite a few weeds thrive during the winter, and this isn’t a good thing for your garden and landscaping. These weeds can compete with your dormant plants for space, water, and nutrients if left unchecked. In addition, some pests remain active in the winter and can feed on your vulnerable plants if they are not controlled.
Luckily, there are ways to undertake winter landscaping maintenance to keep your garden looking its best while surviving the difficult season. Below, we’ve shared cold weather care for Georgia Lake Country gardens that you might find helpful.
Although you can often undertake these winter landscaping tips yourself, hiring a professional is one of the best ways to protect plants in Lake Oconee.
Insulation is your plants and trees' best friend during the winter in Lake Oconee, so it's recommended that you try using mulch. You can apply a somewhat thick layer of mulch around shrubs, trees, and perennials. This mulch will effectively insulate the soil and keep root systems warmer, preventing damage when temperatures plummet.
Ideally, for winter garden protection, layer about two to four inches of mulch. Just be careful not to pile it against the base of trees, as this will not protect your shrubs in winter—or any other greenery—but will lead to rot instead.
Evergreens, like your trees, shrubs, and bushes, are particularly vulnerable to ‘winter burn.’ This is a condition where foliage will lose its moisture because of cold winds. You can use anti-desiccant sprays on your plants to prevent your evergreens from dying in the winter.
This is one of the best Georgia Lake Country landscaping tips for winter you can follow. It's easy to do and won’t cost you a fortune. All you need to do is apply these sprays in the late fall before freezing temperatures set in. It will create a thin layer over the leaves, creating a barrier to the cold. If necessary, you can even reapply these sprays if the temperatures remain mild in the winter.
If you’ve recently built a home with PAXISgroup and have planted evergreens that are still young, this is not a step you’ll want to miss if you care about protecting your landscape.
When considering cold-weather landscaping in Lake Oconee, GA, you should consider constructing temporary windbreaks. Winter winds can be incredibly devastating on landscaping, drying out plants and damaging ornamental grasses and evergreens.
If you construct temporary windbreaks using snow fencing or burlap around exposed plants, you can protect them from these harsh winter winds. In addition, these barriers will help prevent moisture loss in plants and soil erosion.
Another easy way to protect landscaping in Lake Oconee is to water your garden properly. It may seem counterintuitive, but watering your plants in late fall before the ground freezes helps them withstand winter.
A well-hydrated plant is more resilient to winter stress, as dry soil can lead to root damage during freezes. So to guarantee Lake Oconee garden winter protection, water trees and shrubs deeply but avoid oversaturating, as wet soil can become compacted and lead to root rot.
Mulching: Applying mulch costs approximately $30 to $60 per cubic yard, covering around 100 square feet. For small areas, bagged mulch costs about $4 to $6 per bag.
Anti-desiccant sprays: Sprays cost $15 to $25 per bottle and cover 2 to 3 small shrubs or one large shrub.
Windbreaks: Materials like burlap fencing and frost blankets range from $20 to $50 per roll, plus stakes.
Watering: Watering your garden is generally free, though you might prefer a professional fall irrigation service, typically costing $50 to $150.
After you’ve built a custom home, it's important to protect and maintain every part of it, including the landscaping. We hope that you now know how to protect plants in the winter and that our Lake Oconee winter landscaping care tips will come in handy.
If you would like more insights into looking after your landscaping in the winter, you can speak with us at PAXISgroup. Or if you have recently decided to build a home you can contact us and talk to us about the landscaping that will be best suited to survive every season.