Your native garden is a refuge for wildlife and a source of beauty in your neighborhood—don’t let winter salt undo your hard work! While we need some deicing salt in the winter, spreading too much can harm soil, plants, and local waterways. As a part of our Conservation@Home program, we encourage you to be Salt Smart at home to protect your gardens and the environment while still maintaining safe driveways and walkways.
The Problem with Winter Salt
Deicing salt is a staple of winter safety, but its widespread use comes with hidden costs. When salt (typically in the form of sodium chloride, calcium chloride, or magnesium chloride) is applied to icy surfaces, it lowers the freezing point of water, helping to melt snow and ice. However, as snow melts, salt doesn’t just disappear—it seeps into the surrounding soil and washes into storm drains. This causes a few problems:
Salt Accumulates in the Soil
Salt is likely to move into lawns and gardens next to streets and walkways. Salt accumulates in the soil and degrades soil health over time. Excess sodium from salt destroys soil structure, making it more likely to compact. Soil compaction prevents water infiltration and aeration which is necessary for plants. Salt also raises the pH of the soil and impacts beneficial mycorrhizal fungi in the soil. In short, excessive salt in the soil throws the soil ecosystem out of balance.
Salt Damages Your Plants
When salt accumulates in the soil, it is harder for plants to thrive. High levels of sodium and chloride can limit the availability of other essential nutrients that plants need. Rock salt also binds with water and can create a drought-like environment for plants even when moisture is present. As roots take up salt over the years, salt will eventually kill the roots and significantly weaken the plant. At this point, the plant is susceptible to disease and other stresses.
Salt can also damage plants through salt spray. As vehicles drive over salted roads, some salt becomes airborne and can drift hundreds of feet or more from the road. Salt spray can dry out plant tissues and enter plants through buds, young shoots, and evergreen leaves. Salt spray tends to discolor or kill off parts of the plant—what’s often called “salt burn.” On deciduous plants, salt spray can kill buds and new growth, causing misshapen plants.
Salt Hurts Rivers and Streams
As snow and ice melt, the salt-laden runoff flows into storm drains that connect directly to rivers, streams, and lakes. This continues all winter long, causing chloride levels to spike in the winter. Although chloride levels gradually come down in the spring and summer, the baseline concentration is slowly increasing. In other words, our fresh water rivers and streams are becoming saltier.
As you can imagine, saltier water causes issues for the health of stream ecosystems. As chloride concentrations rise in the water, fish, amphibians, freshwater mussels, and aquatic insects struggle to survive.
Salt Smart Solutions at Home
Being Salt Smart should not compromise winter safety. Here are 10 tips to protect your garden and the environment while keeping walkways and driveways safe:
- Before you reach for the salt, remove snow and ice first. Depending on the conditions, use a broom, shovel, snow blower, or ice scraper. Remove snow as soon as you can, before it gets compacted and turns into ice.
- Use the appropriate amount of salt to melt snow and ice. You need much less deicing salt than you think! In fact, a 12-ounce cup of salt is enough to cover 10 sidewalk squares. Scatter salt with space between granules. Salt Smart application rates work to melt ice just as well as an overuse of salt.
- Only scatter salt where needed. Prioritize areas where you and guests walk and places that tend to be slippery, such as steps.
- Avoid shoveling salty snow near salt sensitive plants. If you’re shoveling snow from a surface that you recently salted, pile that snow away from your landscaping.
- Hose down plants next to the road. If you have trees or shrubs near the road, they are likely to be impacted by salt spray. If it’s above freezing, use a hose to wash off salt from these plants after a storm.
- Save on salt with brine! Brine is a mixture of rock salt and water. It starts working right away to melt snow and ice. Brine can also be applied before a storm to prevent snow from bonding to the pavement, making for quick clean-up. Because brine is only 23% rock salt, you reduce the amount of salt needed to cover the same area than if you use rock salt alone. Brine is easy to make at home.
- Be mindful of cold temperatures. Below 15 degrees F, rock salt or sodium chloride will not effectively melt snow and ice. At cold temperatures, switch to a deicer blend that includes calcium chloride or magnesium chloride.
- Prevent icy patches from forming. Point downspouts and sump pumps away from driveways and paths.
- After snow and ice have melted, sweep up extra salt to use later. Extra salt gets into gardens and storm drains. Sweep and collect excess salt to protect the environment and prevent waste.
- Limit salt application in the late winter and early spring. Plants are most vulnerable to salt damage as they are coming out of dormancy. As temperatures rise, it should be easier to create safe surfaces by shoveling.
The Benefits of Being Salt Smart
Adopting Salt Smart practices has several benefits, including:
- Healthier Gardens: Protect your native plants from salt damage, preserving the important habitat they provide for local wildlife.
- Cleaner Waterways: Reduce salt runoff that degrades water quality and harms fish, amphibians, and other aquatic species.
- Safe Winter Surfaces: Salt Smart practices are the best winter maintenance practices—although they use less salt than the standard approach, Salt Smart practices can be more effective at creating safe surfaces.
Your efforts to create a native garden are already making a positive impact—don’t let unwise salt use undo your hard work. Be Salt Smart this winter to protect your plants, wildlife habitat, and local waterways while keeping you and your family safe.
Want more native gardening tips? Check out additional resources from the Conservation@Home program and share these ideas with friends and neighbors. Together, we can keep our gardens thriving and our environment healthy all year long.
Conservation@Home is a program for homeowners who are helping local nature by gardening with native plants, creating wildlife habitat, conserving water, and more. Homeowners who make these earth-friendly choices are certified as a Conservation@Home property and rewarded with a Conservation@Home sign to post in their yard.
If you’re just getting started with your native plant garden, we can help recommend plants suited to your property and connect you with professional resources.
