Weatherproofing Your Landscape: A Homeowner's Guide to Protecting and Rescuing Your Plants

 

“A necessary resource for professionals, universities, botanical gardens, horticultural clubs, and anyone interested in saving their landscape from the increasing danger of threats from fire, wind, and flood.”—Robert Haehle, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

 

“Covers many aspects of preparing your property for extreme weather events: an important part of sustainable landscaping.”—Ginny Stibolt, author of Sustainable Gardening for Florida

 

Global weather events are unpredictable. Hurricanes, tornadoes, drought, fire, snow, ice, freezing temperatures, and floods wreak millions of dollars in damage to residential landscapes each year.

Weatherproofing Your Landscape provides the practical information you need to strengthen precious and valuable trees and shrubs, remove those that can’t be saved, and promptly restore what has been damaged.

For example, your best bet where limited space or thin soil presents a potential tipping problem is to plant small-stature species that develop balanced top-growth-to-root system ratios as they mature. Even where soil depth isn’t a problem, top-heavy specimens are particularly vulnerable to tipping when the ground becomes saturated with rainfall. Selecting proper species for such landscapes as well as improving drainage can help prevent losses from waterlogged soil.

            Every part of the country is vulnerable to any combination of volatile weather events. Weatherproofing Your Landscape supplies the answers on how to prepare, manage, and recover your valuable landscape, including tips on what you can accomplish during a storm to minimize damage.

 

Journalist Sandra Dark’s work has appeared in a wide range of publications including Gardening How-To, Organic Gardening, The Family Food Garden, and Mother Earth News. She is a member of the Garden Writers Association and the American Society of Journalists and Authors. Dean Hill, ASLA, was the cohost and landscape designer of the DIY Network’s Grounds for Improvement television program and is the author of Grounds for Improvement: 25 Great Landscaping & Gardening Projects.