The Garden Bug: Benefits of snow

By Brenda Weaver

The winter landscape can be brilliant. Trees and shrubs with ornamental bark, such as red twig dogwood or river birches, look striking against a blanket of snow, as do ornamental grasses and evergreens. While providing contrast for winter gardens, snow cover serves as insulation for the soil beneath it, protecting the root systems of trees, shrubs and plants within the soil from any severe surface temperature fluctuations, and also helps to conserve and replenish moisture within the soil through the winter months.

Source: lancaster.unl.edu