Trial to find effective protection from de-icing
salt
Winter gives us time to look into things we've seen, such as
whether street trees we passed recently will have good salt
protection for their root zones.
The best gardening is experimental
as well as ephemeral.
- Christopher Lloyd -
In a home garden, a curb can protect a garden from salt-laden
meltwater. Fast-moving traffic along major streets splashes salt
over curbs. So these root balls are covered. Good move!
However, will the salty water end up
concentrated in that gap between tarp and pavement?
We've heard of other techniques, but not seen comparisons or
heard about the practicalities. Here's a place where a side by side
test might be done.
Wonder if the landscape managers might cover every other tree
pit with baled straw, next year? The trees' subsequent growth would
tell whether the straw might do a better job of filtering salt,
make it simpler to remove the residue from the root zone.
The test could also include what some gardeners do who manage
salt spray over beds in downtown Chicago walkways. They roll out
sod over the beds, then take it and its salt burden away in
spring.
More salty stuff
There is more about protecting a landscape from de-icing salt,
in:
What's
Coming Up 15
What's
Coming Up 26
What's
Coming Up 10
What's
Coming Up 11
What's
Coming Up 72
What's Coming Up 118
(As of this writing, some on that list are yet to be posted. If
their links take you to a Sponsor Us page
please consider doing that. We post more from our library every day
and have an order we follow to eventually include everything here,
but we will post out of sequence when sponsors say "We want that
topic."
For a list and links to other topics that
are here
because Sponsors helped us share them with you.