How To Prepare Your Garden For The Storm Season

When preparing for the storm season, it’s important to focus first on securing the safety of your family and home. Here are some tips to prepare your garden for the storm season.

How To Prepare Your Garden For The Storm Season

We’ve reached that time of the year again where we face extreme weather like thunderstorms, heavy rain events, and hurricanes. This is becoming everyone’s concern whether you live in a coastal community, valley, suburban neighbourhood, or metro since these types of events are unavoidable and often arrive with little to no notice. When preparing for the storm season, it’s important to focus first on securing the safety of your family and home.

In this article, we’ll share some tips to prepare your garden for the storm season. But remember that no matter how much we love our garden and landscaping, it can always grow back.

START A YEARLY SCHEDULE

Unless you live near a body of water, most damage that occurs may be caused by winds. The most susceptible part of your garden isn’t any of the flowers or plants, it’s the trees throughout your property. To prevent this, you can take time at the beginning of the year to thin out the canopy of your trees, large or small, before any new growth begins to develop.

Examine them for any signs of disease, check the upper branches as well as around the roots. Any disease can increase the chances of your tree coming down during high winds. Waiting until a storm or hurricane hits your home before doing something can cost you so much time and money.

DE-DECORATE YOUR GARDEN

For most of the year, all items in our garden are not only aesthetically pleasing but also serve a purpose in making our gardening tasks simpler. But when the storm season comes, these same tools and decorations can quickly become dangerous. Start removing any hanging flower pots, bird feeders, or any items in your garden that can easily get carried away by winds and store them indoors.

After that, consider moving all the larger pots indoors if they are not too heavy. Otherwise, you can place a few heavy items around the pot to prevent it from rolling around during a storm. As difficult as it may seem, you have to accept that your beautiful blooms or trees will most likely be blown away and avoid wrapping any plants with tarps and blankets because they can turn into a “sail” or “kite” and may cause the plant to whip around and potentially snap.

CONSIDER DRAINAGE AND POTENTIAL BLOCKAGES

A lot of severe thunderstorms and hurricanes deliver rain amounts that can exceed six inches, often dropping double-digit in a small amount of time. Anytime an area reaches this level, drainage and sewer are tested to the extreme. A lot of the damage caused by the storm isn’t really by the amount of rain but from clogged drains caused by leaves, mulch, branches and other organic matters. It’s vital to clear any drains located near your garden and consider taking up mulch in that area. After heavy rain, pull back the mulch on garden beds to allow the soil to dry out and prevent any root rot from developing.

USE STRUCTURES TO YOUR ADVANTAGE

As long as you know the direction of the storm, move larger items in your garden like tables, chairs, coolers, umbrellas and more to the side of your property that’s shielded from strong winds. If you have a pool, tie a rope to your patio furniture and toss them in. They will be much safer underwater and the rope will make the retrieval easier once the storm passed.