Winter isn’t downtime for your outdoor space. It’s the season that makes or breaks next year’s landscape. The landscape maintenance decisions you make (or don’t make) over the next few months will directly impact whether you’re hosting Memorial Day on a brand-new patio and beautifully landscaped garden, or still waiting for materials to arrive in August.
This guide covers everything you need to know to protect what you’ve already built, maintain your landscape through the cold months and use this strategic window to plan major projects that will be ready when warm weather returns. Whether you have a modest backyard or an extensive outdoor living space, these winter landscaping tips will help you get the most from your property.
Protect What You Already Have
You’ve invested in beautiful plantings that transform your property through spring, summer and fall. But here’s what most homeowners don’t realize: The real threat to those plants isn’t the cold itself. It’s what happens between the cold snaps.
Ohio’s winter weather is unpredictable. We get freeze-thaw cycles that stress plant roots, harsh winds that dry out evergreens and temperature swings that trick plants into breaking dormancy too early. When a beautifully established rhododendron dies in February, it’s usually not because of January’s single-digit cold snap. It’s because of the three freeze-thaw cycles that followed, combined with dehydrating winter winds.
Here’s how to protect your landscape investment before winter really sets in:
Mulch Correctly
You need 2 to 3 inches of fresh mulch around your plant beds, applied after the ground starts to freeze (typically late November in the Miami Valley). Too early, and you’re creating a cozy home for mice and voles. Too thick, and you’re smothering roots.
The goal isn’t to keep the ground warm: It’s to keep soil temperatures consistent, preventing those damaging freeze-thaw cycles. Pull mulch a few inches away from tree trunks and shrub stems to prevent rot.
Water Deeply Before the Ground Freezes
This sounds counterintuitive, but well-hydrated plants survive winter better than dry ones. Evergreens especially continue losing moisture through their needles all winter long (a process called transpiration).
If they enter winter already drought-stressed, they’ll show browning by March, which is difficult to fix. Give your landscape a thorough soaking in late fall, especially if we’ve had a dry autumn.
Protect Vulnerable Plants Strategically
Not every plant needs winter protection, but young trees, recent transplants, broadleaf evergreens and anything marginally hardy for our zone definitely do. Burlap screens work well for blocking wind on the north and west sides of plants. Just don’t wrap plants like mummies, which traps moisture and causes more problems than it solves.
For tender plants, consider anti-desiccant sprays that reduce moisture loss through leaves. And if you have boxwoods or other plants prone to snow damage, a simple teepee of stakes and twine will prevent branch breakage when snow slides off your roof.
Prevent Damage to Hardscapes and Outdoor Features
We see extensive hardscape damage every spring that could have been prevented with a few winter precautions.
The biggest culprit? Well-meaning snow removal.
Metal shovels scraping across pavers, rock salt eating away at natural stone, snowblowers pelting outdoor kitchen cabinetry with ice chunks. We’ve seen beautiful bluestone patios pitted by calcium chloride, paver joints destroyed by aggressive shoveling and custom outdoor kitchens with winter water damage that could have been avoided.
Here are some examples of things that damage your hardscapes:
Rock salt (sodium chloride or calcium chloride) is extremely effective at melting ice. It’s also extremely effective at breaking down natural stone, discoloring pavers and killing any plants the runoff touches. If you have natural stone patios or walkways, limestone pavers or high-end concrete work, traditional rock salt will slowly destroy your investment. We recommend sand or calcium magnesium acetate for traction instead. Yes, it’s more expensive. Yes, it’s worth it when you’re protecting a $40,000 patio.
Snow removal technique matters more than you’d think.
- Use plastic shovels or shovels with rubber edges on pavers and natural stone.
- Pile snow in landscape beds, not on top of hardscapes where freeze-thaw cycles will damage joints and surfaces.
- Never use a metal-edged snowblower directly on pavers. The augur can chip edges and dislodge sand from joints.
- If you hire a snow removal service, make sure they understand you have high-end hardscaping that requires careful handling.
Winterize Your Outdoor Kitchen
If you have an outdoor kitchen, simply throwing a tarp over it isn’t enough.
- Water lines need to be blown out and drained.
- Gas lines should be shut off at the source.
- Grills and other appliances should be cleaned, covered with breathable covers (not plastic) and ideally stored if possible.
Unfortunately, outdoor refrigerators can be ruined by freeze damage, ice expansion can crack pizza ovens and moisture trapped under tarps can warp outdoor cabinetry.
Same goes for water features, fire pits with gas lines and lighting systems. Each requires specific winterizing steps based on how they’re built.
This is one area where professional help pays for itself. Our maintenance team winterizes outdoor features correctly the first time, and we keep records of what was done so there’s no guessing come spring. It’s usually a relatively small cost that prevents thousands in repair costs.
Maintain Your Landscape Through the Winter
Smart Pruning for Stronger Spring Growth
Winter pruning is one of those landscape tasks that separates homeowners who understand their investment from those who are just winging it. Done right, winter is actually the ideal time to prune many plants. Done wrong, you’ll spend spring wondering why your hydrangeas aren’t blooming.
Here’s what you need to know:
Most deciduous trees and shrubs are best pruned in late winter, typically February through early March in the Miami Valley. Without leaves in the way, you can see the structure clearly, make better cuts and avoid the diseases that spread during growing season. Oaks, maples, honey locusts and most shade trees benefit from dormant pruning. You’re also less likely to disturb nesting birds or attract insects to fresh cuts.
The benefits go beyond just shaping. Winter pruning allows you to remove dead, diseased or damaged wood before spring growth starts. You can correct structural problems, such as crossing branches that will rub and create wounds, narrow crotch angles that will eventually split or crowded growth that blocks light and air circulation. Better structure means healthier plants and fewer storm-damage calls.
But here’s where people get into trouble: Spring-flowering shrubs like lilacs, forsythia, azaleas and rhododendrons set their flower buds in late summer for the following spring. Prune them in winter, and you’re cutting off this year’s blooms. These should wait until right after they finish flowering. Same with early-blooming trees like magnolias, redbuds and flowering cherries.
Summer-blooming plants like hydrangeas (most varieties), roses and crape myrtles bloom on new growth, so winter pruning actually encourages more flowers. Evergreens generally don’t need much pruning, but if they do, late winter works well. Just avoid pruning them during extreme cold.
And some plants should never be pruned in winter. Maples, birches and walnuts are “bleeders” that lose excessive sap if pruned during dormancy. Wait until late spring when they’ve leafed out.
If you’re not confident about what should be pruned when, you’re not alone. We get calls every March from homeowners who pruned their lilacs in February and are now staring at a bush with no blooms. A professional knows which plants are on which schedule, and more importantly, how to prune for the plant’s long-term health, not just this season’s appearance.
Manage Snow Strategically
Snow removal seems straightforward until you realize how much damage careless snow management causes to landscapes. Every spring, we repair plants crushed by snow piles, hardscaping damaged by aggressive plowing and drainage systems overwhelmed by poor snow placement.
Where you put the snow matters as much as how you remove it. Piling snow on plant beds might seem harmless… It’s just snow, right? But compacted snow on top of dormant shrubs creates two problems.
- First, the sheer weight can snap branches, especially on evergreens and multi-stem plants.
- Second, when that pile finally melts in March, you’re flooding that area with far more water than it would naturally receive, which can drown roots or cause heaving.
Instead, pile snow in open lawn areas where it can melt gradually without overwhelming specific plants or drainage points. Keep it away from sensitive plantings like ornamental grasses (which collapse under snow weight), broadleaf evergreens and anything newly planted. And never pile snow where the meltwater will run into your house, garage or onto hardscaping.
Use Winter to Plan a Major Landscape Project
Here’s something most homeowners don’t realize until it’s too late: if you want a new patio, outdoor kitchen or major landscape renovation completed by Memorial Day, you need to start planning in December.
Why is winter the best time to start designing your landscape project? Let’s dive in.
Most Design Teams Have More Availability in Winter
From April through October, our team balances active construction projects, site visits and design work for clients moving quickly while the weather allows. Winter is typically a slower season for construction, which creates more availability for our designers to take on new projects. This allows for easier scheduling, greater flexibility for meetings and site visits, and quicker turnaround on revisions, helping keep your project on track without waiting for the busy season.
Material Lead Times Are the Hidden Bottleneck Nobody Warns You About
That custom bluestone you fell in love with? It could be an eight- to 12-week lead time from the quarry, and that’s if they have the quantity you need.
The pergola timber that matches your home’s architecture? It could take six to 10 weeks for fabrication.
Outdoor kitchen components, specialty pavers, custom metalwork, mature specimen plants… These all require advance ordering.
If you wait until April to start designing, and finalize plans in May, you’re looking at material deliveries in July or August. Now you’re competing with everyone else for installation crews during peak season, and your project pushes to fall. Or worse, next spring.
Start designing in January, finalize by March and your materials arrive in May when our crews have capacity for landscape installation. You’re using your new outdoor space in June instead of watching everyone else enjoy theirs while you’re still in the planning phase.
Spring and Early-Summer Construction Slots Fill Up Fast
The Site Group maintains enough crews to serve our clients well without overextending, which means we’re not infinite. By mid-February, our spring installation schedule is typically 70 percent committed. By early April, we’re usually scheduling into late summer and fall.
Clients who start the design process in November and December get first choice of spring installation dates. Clients who call us in April are looking at late summer or fall installation. Which isn’t necessarily bad, but it’s probably not what they had in mind when they started dreaming about hosting summer gatherings around their new fire pit.
Winter Landscape Planning Creates Summer Enjoyment
Winter reveals what summer hides. It shows you the structure of your landscape, the problems you’ve been tolerating and the opportunities you’ve been postponing.
The homeowners who enjoy their outdoor spaces most aren’t the ones with the best weather luck. They’re the ones who used winter strategically, protecting their investments, addressing problems before they became expensive and planning projects while everyone else was waiting for spring to think about their yards. If you’ve been considering a landscape project, now is the time to move from “someday” to “this year.” Schedule a phone consultation with The Site Group today!
