Salt Ruining Your Lawn? Do This Before You Reseed

Road salt and ice melt will keep your walkways and driveway safe, but there’s a price to pay for melting all that ice with salt. When spring arrives and the snow thaws, you may pay the price with a burnt lawn. When the ice and snow melts, all that rock salt will dissolve and run off into your lawn, leaving a brown border of dead grass along your walkways and driveway. You’ll need to mitigate the soil before you can plant new grass seed. Here’s how. 

Related: Here's How I Spring Seed My Lawn as a Yardcare Expert

Why Does Rock Salt Damage A Lawn?

While some types of ice melt are easy on plants, rock salt can do a real number on your lawn:

• Dehydration: Salt pulls moisture from the soil and plant roots, causing them to dry out and die. 
• Nutrient blocking: Sodium is toxic to grass, preventing it from taking in nutrients and stopping photosynthesis. 
• Soil damage: Salt can damage the structure of salt, causing compaction and creating high sodium chloride levels that prevent roots from absorbing water. 
• Toxic: Salt is toxic to grass, burning the leaves when it comes into contact with it. 

How to Fix A Salt Damaged Lawn

One your lawn is damaged by salt, you can’t successfully plant seed in it until you’ve mitigated the problem by taking these steps:

1. Start by flushing the salt out of the soil using a hose. Flush the soil with water to move the salt below the root zone. Use a shower setting on a hose attachment to shower the area with water. You’ll need to do this several times to flush out the salt. If you believe you have extensive salt damage, you may need to amend the soil with gypsum. Contact your local ag extensions and ask them to conduct a salinity test on your soil.  
2. Wait for the soil to dry, rake the soil to loosen it while removing any debris like leaves and twigs. 
3. Amend the soil with compost and use a rake to mix it into the top layer of soil. 
4. Rake the soil until it’s smooth, then use a broadcast spreader to sow seed into the new soil. Cover the seed with a light layer of soil. Water the area three times a day for 5 to 10 minutes each time until sprouts appear, then back off the watering to twice a week. 

Salt Damage Prevention

You don’t have to suffer through icy driveway and slippery walkways all winter to protect your grass. Rock salt can kill your grass and sully your soil, but other ice melt products are safe for your lawn. Ice melt made with calcium chloride and magnesium chloride are safer for both pets and plants as long as they’re used in moderation. 

If you don’t want to put anything down that could potentially harm your lawn, you can also instead improve the traction of slippery areas by putting down sand or cat litter. Neither will melt ice, but they will add traction.