In our last article, we told of many post hurricane situations that you should have professional landscapers, like Peer Landscaping of Fort Myers handle rather than trying to do it yourself. However, having said all that about what you should not take care of on your own, we also want to give you some specific steps you can take to preserve parts of your landscaping on your own property, until our professionals can get to you. For many areas of Lee and Collier County the flooding from Hurricane Ian affected homes, cars, boats, and yards. Flooding poses some particular problems when trying to clean up after a hurricane. Flood waters hide all kinds of submerged dangers, and once they recede, they leave behind debris, garbage, silt, mud, and general nastiness. You will want to clear all of that and clean everything as well as possible in your yard. Part of the problem with the flooding is the fact that much of it has salt water, which is corrosive to anything metal or wood, and is also detrimental to living plants of all kinds. Here are some of the ways you should handle the post flooding clean-up of your landscape.

1. Take photos of the damage before you clean anything up. These photos are necessary for insurance purposes. 
2. If your area is flooded, wait until the water recedes before doing anything. There are too many dangerous things that could be submerged or floating in the water. One thing you can do during this time is to clear any debris away from downspouts or drainage paths to help the water recede.
3. Once the water recedes rake the mulch away from plants to help excess water evaporate.
4. If you had flooding, once the water recedes your lawn may have a lot of debris, mud, and silt on it. Do your best to rake this debris away so it doesn’t smother your grass.
5. Hurricane Ian’s winds were up to 140 miles an hour in Cape Coral, and the rain it carried was sucked up from the Gulf, so it was salty. Unfortunately, ocean water can damage plants in several ways, and we’ve already seen much of that damage. Trees and bushes look like they’ve been burned, and in a way, they were. The plants in our area got wind burn and on top of that salt burn at the same time. Salt displaces the nutrients plants need and pull moisture out of the roots causing desiccation. For plants that have been exposed to salt water, you should irrigate them with fresh water as soon as possible, spraying off the foliage and applying water to the roots. Water more frequently than normal.

Peer Landscaping is a landscape design and installation company based out of Fort Myers, Florida. We are very different from your average landscapers. You will learn how we work, how our process makes us unique, as well as some of our favorite plant variations we love to work with. We are a Christian based company, which means that we have values that we believe in and those are foundational pieces to the way we do business and how we treat our clients. We look forward to learning more about you and your needs as we take this journey together!