Re: Snow drift question....

[Keith Johnson <keithdj@mindspring.com>]

Claude,
Having seen your place, if you want to protect your house from those hard westerlies
right off the lake, you'll have to make the wind blow AROUND and OVER your house. What
shape and position would your windbreak have to take to shape the wind to go around?
Could some of it form a sunscoop? Much of the snow could be caught in the woods out
back (east of your place) and in your slowly maturing multistoried swaled, ponded
system. The deeper your snow, the less your soil freezes and the more it can absorb at
melt time. There's still likely to be raging snowmelt, more than your soils can hold,
but assorted ponds and wetlands can help. Slowing the water down is what prevents
erosion.

Keith
PS I had to knock the snow off the greenhouse 5 times to keep it from collapsing and
had 3 ft accumulated on the ground outside. Nothing like Brrmont, though. Happily it
was gone two days later, the daffodils risen from the melted snow. Greenhouse is full
of babies. Mmmmmmmmmm.

Claude Genest wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I'm wanting to put in a fedge on my lakefront property principally to act as
> a wind/snowbreak and to help with erosion.
>
> However, because the town road runs right alongside the lakefront, they
> technically "own" it and I need their permission.
>
> An old timer whose opinion I respect tells me that a "snowfence"  causes
> snowdrifting on its leeward side which in this case will be the road.
>
>  Therefore he says, I will actually make matters worse, at least from the
> p.o.v. of plowing the snow off the road. Far better he says to keep it open
> and let the wind blow the snow off the road
>
> Any comments/ideas on how I can more effectively design my plantings? any
> info. that would convince the old-timer ?
>
> One clue: The old-timer tells me that the drifting he has witnessed was over
> a three-foot high orange plastic snow fence which I'm thinking behaves quite
> differently than a (mature) planted fedge (?)
>
> Thanks in advance for your input.
>
> Claude in Vermont
>
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