Are You Ready to Melt Your Ice and Handle Your Snow?

Baby it's cold outside! Many of us are waking up to see frost on our windshields—and the odd houseplant left outside that we won’t have to worry about over-watering anymore. 

That means it is time to purchase a lawn and landscape-friendly de-icer BEFORE the stores run out of the good stuff. So, if you haven’t yet slid acrobatically across the patio like an Olympic ice skater (who then fails to spot the landing), get thee to a hardware or local home store right away, buy what you think you’ll need for a while and be prepared, especially if you have already had fun exploring the physics of the non-friction surface that used to be your front steps.

Visit or call local shops to see if a) they still have some of the stuff we’ll list in a minute. Or b) If they’re out of stock, ask when the next truck comes in, be there and seize the moment. The long-range forecast for many of us indicates a potentially cold and miserable winter, so don’t delay. (Or under-buy.)

Here's what you don’t want: Rock salt (chemical initials NACL) is cheap, but it damages lawns, patios, cars and structures. Alternatives are somewhat more expensive, but they don’t nuke your landscape or rust your car—and they work better, faster and at lower temperatures than rock salt. And you apply much less of the alternatives, so you probably amortize things (or better) over the winter; in addition to you not destroying your plantings, patio, or inviting rust to invade your undercarriage. Make sure the letters NACL don’t appear on the label.

Here's what you DO want: My top choice is calcium chloride (chemical initials CaCl), and my preferred packaging is one of those hard plastic shaker jugs; they keep the material nice and fresh. And when empty and rinsed well, they make GREAT containers for potting soil and such. CaCl also comes in reusable buckets. No matter the container, seal the lid tightly in between uses, and keep it away from moisture. You should be wary of bagged deicer. Once opened, the material in plastic bags can quickly solidify and become hard to work with—or even worse, generate enough heat to be problematic. And plastic bags are a serious danger to marine life, especially sea turtles, who mistake them for tasty jellyfish.

It looks like the first patches of ice are going to show up super early this season—perhaps as soon as last week. You need to be prepared to protect yourself from falls without killing your lawn by buying some alternative de-icer this weekend, if you haven’t loaded up already. (And if you have, good on you: collect two hundred dollars and stay out of jail.

Again, my top choice is calcium chloride (CaCl); a very small amount melts ice fast, even at very low temperatures.

Potassium chloride (aka potash [yes, like ‘our’ potash, but not for use in the garden because of the chloride salts]); chemical designation: KCL. It’s obtained from ancient dried lake deposits that were once primordial oceans, and is harvested from lakes in the Chinese province of Qinghai, to then be reworked in Japan.)

And magnesium chloride (MgCl); obtained naturally from the Great Salt-lake in North America and the Dead Sea in Jordan. In Japan it is sold as nigari (にがり, derived from the Japanese word for "bitter"), a white powder produced from seawater after the sodium chloride has been removed, and the water evaporated. In China, the material originates from lakes in the Chinese province of Qinghai, to be then reworked in Japan.

It is also plant safe and very effective. You may find some or all of these mixed together in ice-melting blends.

At the risk of repetition, what you want to avoid is sodium chloride, aka rock salt, aka NACL on the label. Yes, it’s cheap, but a new lawn and landscape are not—so stay away from the rock.

And be careful—some products that look like alternatives are 90% rock salt wearing a red dress and high heels. If the package lists NACL as an ingredient, take a pass and keep on looking.

A Little Dab’ll Do Ya

In my part of PA, nighttime temps in the twenties are predicted for next week with rain, snow, sleet and a plague of locusts on Tuesday. Be prepared to prevent slips and falls by having a good de-icer on hand. To protect your lawn and other plantings, make it calcium chloride or one of the other plant-safe de-icers. All together now: anything BUT rock salt.

And use it wisely. It takes only a very small amount of these alternative de-icers to prevent ice from forming, so be stingy when you spread it. And be aware that the most effective method is to spread the material right before a potentially icy weather event begins.

It is much easier to prevent ice from forming than it is to try and melt it away in a hurry the next morning, when you’re trying to get to work without breaking your neck.

And if you miss that window, be sure to remove any snow before using the de-icer.