After a winter storm, your trees and landscape can look utterly destroyed. Fortunately, there is a good chance that much of it will bounce back come the flush of spring growth if you take steps to counteract the worst of the damage. The following tips can help you recover your landscape so that by summer the destruction of the winter storm will just be a distant memory.

Tip #1: Locate any dangers

Your first task is to look for any immediate dangers the storm has left behind. Are any broken branches tangled up in power lines or in danger of falling to the ground and causing injury? Are there any ice-laden branches that are drooping into dangerous territory? Your first task is to contact a crew to take care of these dangers by either removing the broken branch or removing the heavy ice safely. Don't attempt to do this yourself, especially if there are power lines involved.

Tip #2: Clean up the debris

You don't want to leave broken branches sitting on the lawn, even if they are resting on a large amount of snow. Come spring, this debris will trap moisture, which can lead to lawn mold or brown spots. It can also end up clogging up the sewers and drains around your home once the snow begins to melt, which means your yard—or worse, your home—can suffer flooding in the spring. Rake up as much of the deadfall as possible to prevent these problems. Stack the mix of deadfall and leaves in an area where it won't be in the way until the snow melts, and you can collect and discard the twigs and leaves that were mixed in.

Tip #3: Tend to the tree wounds

A broken branch doesn't mean the end of a tree. Wait until it leafs out in spring before making a decision on whether it should be saved. Often, the loss of a few branches isn't obvious once the tree is in full leaf. For now, clean up the wound to help encourage proper recovery. To do this, cut back any branch stumps to the branch collar, which is the raised ring of bark where the branch joins the trunk. If the bark was damaged, then trim the wound with a sharp knife so the ragged edges of bark are smooth. This will allow the area to heal over the wounded bark more cleanly.

For more help, contact a tree care and removal company in your area, or check out websites like http://treesculptors.com to learn more.

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