There are some things I know about snow. It’s wet. It reflects light, making our dark Alaskan days a little brighter. It’s insistent and surprising, meaning that my snow shovel is always at hand from October through May. Since moving to Alaska, I’ve heard several times that Native Alaskans have hundreds of words to describe different types of snow. Makes sense, when you live with so much of the stuff.

I thought that would make a great intro to what I really want to address in this post, which is “snow as a garden insulator.” This is another fact I’ve heard a number of times. So when I discovered that the whole Eskimo language factoid is actually an exaggeration verging on hoax, I had two immediate thoughts: 1) Sure glad I looked that up before passing it on as truth, and 2) Better look up snow as an insulator… what if that’s an old wive's tale?

In English, we say “blanket of snow,” which would lead one to believe that snow does indeed have insulating properties. Whether it’s a toasty blanket for your plants, or a wet blanket…now that’s the question.

I’m not sure there’s one authoritative resource on snow. The Federal Department of Flakes and Snow-Related Garden Questions didn’t answer my email. So in a blizzard of Internet searching, I’ve come up with the following:

• Snow is indeed an insulator, and will increase the temperature of the soil at the base of your trees, shrubs and plants.


• Too much snow can weigh down certain plants and trees, so after a heavy snowfall, you may consider clearing them off – think of it as a new outdoor winter sport.


• It’s not the snow that’s the problem, really. It’s the freeze/thaw cycle and whether your plants’ cells explode with all that rapid freezing and thawing. Not a pretty picture.


• Snow may not be enough of an insulator, depending on your plant hardiness, how cold your winter is, and whether you get enough snow. You may want other insulators, such as a mulch of leaves or straw for certain plant types.Take additional precautions for potted plants.


• Snow-melt, depending on its make-up, can damage your plants, so be cautious using it near plants lining your driveway or sidewalk.


• Snow can actually improve your soil by adding nitrogen.

Finally, I should say that I have a chart from my cross-country skiing lessons last winter. It is a complicated-looking grid that is supposed to tell me which kind of wax to use on my skis, depending on the air temperature and whether I’m skiing on “fine new snow,” “old powder snow” or “granular snow,” taking into account as well the moisture content of the snow. This is more snow science than I need in my life just to do a little skiing. Might I suggest that we could use a few more words in English to describe snow? The meteorologists could help us out here by just announcing whether it’s “skiable snow,” “stay-by-the-fireplace snow,” or “your-plants-are-happy-now snow.”

Resources

• "Blanket of Snow is poor man's fertilizer" by Jeff Lownfels, Anchorage Daily News, October 2008


• Inuit Snow Terms: How Many and What does it Mean?


• If you enjoy linguistics as much as you do gardening, check out The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax and Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language