Tips for Keeping Your Lawn Healthy and Safe During Hurricane Season

6/17/2021 (Permalink)

It is crucial to prepare your lawn in order to keep it healthy during South Florida hurricane season.

With high power winds, intense rains, and an extreme potential for flooding, hurricanes can easily ruin your lawn and surrounding property. While you may not be able to prevent a hurricane from hitting your area, there are certain things you can do to ensure your property survives with the smallest amount of damage possible. It is crucial to prepare your lawn in order to keep it healthy during South Florida hurricane season.

1. Keep Trees Pruned

The process of pruning, getting rid of dead or unwanted branches from tress, is a key part of preparing your lawn for Florida’s hurricane season. With hurricane winds exceeding 74 mph, it is important to prune your branches before the storm in order to prevent them from flying through the air and potentially into your home. Dead or decaying branches can become hazards if the hurricane winds tear them off of the trees. However, it is important to keep the healthy branches intact to provide stability to the tree and keep it from toppling over.

2. Remove Any Items from the Yard

To prevent items flying around your yard and causing any damage, all yard décor and small potted plants should be brought inside the house in preparation for a hurricane. If items, such as large plants, are too big to move, lay them sideways and try to secure them to the ground. Any lawn decorations, toys, wind chimes, or anything else that could easily get picked up by the wind, should all be moved inside.

3. Turn Sprinklers Off

Due to the fact that it can be extremely detrimental to over water plants, you should make sure your sprinklers are turned off your lawn does not receive any extra water during or after the hurricane. The heavy rainfall that comes with hurricanes can potentially lead to diseases that weaken the roots of your plant. With this, the heavy winds from the hurricane could uproot the plants on your lawn. Even though most sprinkler system will automatically turn off during rainfall, it is important to manually turn them off before a storm until your lawn is no longer oversaturated.

4. Inspect Your Drainage System

It is crucial to make sure your drainage system is working properly in order to keep your lawn healthy. As mentioned above, over-watering your lawn can be very harmful, so its vital to make sure it is draining correctly. Any standing water after the storm can also damage your lawn. You should check for any debris that could block the drain and make sure water has a clear path to follow in order to prevent further erosion.