A Connecticut winter is hard on a landscape: months of freeze-thaw cycles, plows, shovels, rock salt and snowmelt that has nowhere to go. Most of the damage starts small. A single heaved paver or a hairline crack in a mortar joint is a quick fix in April. Left alone, it lets in water, and by October it can be a rebuild.
Grab a coffee and take ten minutes to walk the property with this list.
Patios and walkways
- Heaved or sunken pavers and stones. Look for pieces sitting higher or lower than their neighbors. They're trip hazards and a sign water may be getting under the base.
- Missing joint sand. Winter storms and snow removal wash sand out of joints. Without it, pavers start to shift. Topping it up is quick and inexpensive.
- Cracked mortar joints. On mortared bluestone or brick, look for cracks or loose pieces. Water that gets in will freeze next winter and make it worse.
- Flaking or pitting. Spalling on bluestone or pavers usually means de-icing salt. Consider a gentler de-icer next winter.
- White haze. Efflorescence is a mineral bloom that often appears after winter. It usually fades on its own or cleans off with a product made for it.
- Puddles. After the next rain, note where water sits on the patio. A low spot now becomes an ice patch next January.
A good spring wash and, if your patio was sealed, a check on whether it needs resealing will set it up for the season.
Retaining walls and seat walls
- Leaning or bulging. Sight down the face or stretch a string along the top. Compare to last year's photos if you have them. Take new ones now.
- Displaced stones or blocks, especially in the middle of the wall's height.
- Loose or lifted cap stones. Frost and people sitting on the wall loosen caps. Re-glue them before they fall.
- Clear weep holes and outlets. Make sure drain outlets at the ends or base of the wall aren't buried by mulch, soil or leaves.
- Soil washing out through joints or erosion at the top or base after spring rains.
Any movement in a wall retaining a lot of soil is worth a professional look sooner rather than later.
Steps
- Loose treads or risers. A rocking step is a fall waiting to happen.
- Uneven rise. Frost can lift one step more than another. Even a half-inch difference catches toes.
- Cracked or missing mortar, especially on the treads where water collects.
- Railings that have loosened over the winter.
Beds and plantings
- Cut back grasses and perennials left up for winter interest before new growth gets tall, usually late March through April.
- Check shrubs along the driveway and street for salt burn and plow damage. Flush salted beds with a thorough watering, and prune broken branches cleanly.
- Look for winter burn on evergreens: browned needles or leaves on the windward or sunny side. Wait for new growth before pruning heavily; many recover.
- Don't work wet soil. Squeeze a handful. If it stays in a sticky ball, wait. Working wet clay compacts it for the rest of the season.
- Re-cut bed edges and top up mulch to 2 to 3 inches, keeping it off stems and trunks.
- Replace plants that didn't make it once you're sure. Some late risers, like summersweet, look dead well into May.
Gutters, drainage and lighting
- Clean gutters and check downspouts, including any buried lines, to make sure water is actually coming out the far end.
- Note where water collected during spring melt and rains. Those are the spots to address before summer storms.
- Walk the lighting after dark. Fixtures get knocked over by shovels and snow. Straighten them, clean the lenses, and replace any dead lamps.
- Reset the lighting timer if it didn't adjust for daylight saving time.
Book early
Spring is the busiest season for masonry and landscape work in Connecticut. If your walk-around turns up something bigger than a weekend fix, like a moving wall, a sinking patio or a drainage problem, getting on the schedule early means it's done before summer instead of during it.
An Earthworks foreman is happy to walk the property with you and point out what can wait and what shouldn't, free.