Don’t Rush to Shovel Snow: 8 Benefits for Your Garden
Snow might seem like an inconvenience or danger to the garden, but it actually offers many benefits for your growing space. Here are eight ways it can help your garden (and two potential drawbacks).
Winter weather brings many challenges for the home gardener — not the least of which is snow. When you see a thick blanket covering your plants, it may be tempting to pull out the snowblower and remove it.
However, doing so would be a disservice to your garden. It turns out that nature’s blanket has many benefits for your garden. Here’s why you may want to leave that icy precipitation in place.
There’s a lot to like about snow in the garden. Let’s look closer at the benefits for your growing space.
The phrase “blanket” of snow isn’t a misnomer: Snow really works to warm the world around it. Feel under a snowbank, and you’ll see the temperature is warmer than the air. That’s due to the air pockets trapped within the ice crystals that cause it to act as a fluffy quilt.
This natural insulation makes a big difference for plants when the temperature plummets. Prolonged freezes can damage plant cells and cause stems and leaves to turn black and die. In this way, a layer of snow protects plants from the freeze-thaw cycle that comes throughout late winter.
It takes more than an inch or two to provide these benefits for your plants. If you’re lacking the deep, fluffy downfall that offers the most protection, consider shoveling some snow from elsewhere in your yard onto the most vulnerable sections of your garden.
Not only does snow prevent plants from dealing with cold, it also protects against wind. Cold ground without snow cover can expose plant roots to harsh winds that dry them out, causing long-term damage by spring.
If you tend to leave your potted plants outdoors in the winter, then snow is a necessary protection for them. A cocooning layer of snow can keep fragile clay pots from cracking and ensure the plants inside survive until spring.
Winter tends to be a drying time in the garden. Freezing winds can suck the moisture out of the ground and leave plants depleted. Not only does snow protect against these chilling blasts, but it prevents roots from drying out and provides much-needed moisture to the soil once it melts.
Many plants require snow to get a sense of the seasons. A thick layer of snow works to keep many spring bulbs in dormancy, and the warmer temperatures that start melting the snow in the spring trigger them to break their dormancy and begin to bloom.
Without the snow as an indicator, they might begin to bloom too early and then die back when the temperature drops again.
Snow has earned the nickname “poor man’s fertilizer” for a reason. This form of frozen particles isn’t pure water. Rather, it contains significant amounts of nitrogen and other trace minerals that actively improve the soil. As it falls through the atmosphere, snow crystals pick up these compounds from the air and then deliver them into your ground by springtime.
The amount is far from insignificant: By some estimates, your soil receives between 2-20 lbs (1-9kg) of nitrogen per acre through snow and rain each year.
There’s no reason to harvest the whole vegetable garden once the first frost occurs. Some plants, like greens and root vegetables, often taste sweetest when they’ve spent some time in below-freezing weather.
However, temperature extremes and hard freezes can dry them out and ruin their flavor. A thick layer of snow over the top helps preserve those carrots and parsnips and ensures they’re ready to eat whenever you dig them up.
Snow on your garden beds creates the perfect nursery for seeds to germinate. It provides a naturally moist environment and protects the seeds from temperature extremes that could kill them off. Many varieties require wintry conditions to sprout at all, and you’d have to mimic this through stratification indoors if the weather doesn’t comply.
Snow offers an abundance of benefits for your garden, but it has some drawbacks as well. Here are two reasons why you may want to consider removing it from your growing space after all.
Thick, wet snow carries a ton of weight, and it can cause damage to fragile structures and plants. You might find branches torn from trees after a snowfall, and they might be destructive on the way down.
For this reason, it’s wise to take down any fragile greenhouses or other garden structures before winter starts and to trim any precarious branches at risk of snapping.
Snow’s insulating properties are well known to many garden pests like slugs, voles, and mice, who often spend the winter living in snow tunnels. A thick layer in your garden throughout the winter might become the nesting ground for a population explosion by springtime, leading you to spend much of the growing season attempting to get it under control.
Likewise, lots of heavily packed snow can act as a “step stool” to make it easier for small animals like mice or rabbits to reach new growth on bushes and perennials that might otherwise be inaccessible. You may want to protect vulnerable plants with cages made from chicken wire or dig out the snow along the bottom to keep them from getting easy access.
Once you take time to look at its benefits, there’s a lot to like about snow in the garden. From protecting plants from temperature extremes to giving them a dose of much-needed moisture and nutrients, consider keeping it in place to reap all the benefits nature provides for your growing space.
