Protecting Shrubbery and Plants During Roof Replacement

Roof replacement can cause serious damage to shrubbery, flower beds and lawns surrounding the house. Although many roofing contractors do their best to keep damage and debris to a minimum, it cannot always be avoided. If you have some particularly valuable or special plant life that surrounds your home, taking the time to protect it while the roof is being replaced is important.

The three simple steps below will help guide you. Just Move It The easiest plants to protect while the roof is being replaced are those you can move. Planters and container plants can be transported to other areas of the lawn, under a porch roof that is not being replaced, or even temporarily brought indoors. For particularly heavy planters, work with a partner to place the container on a dolly or hand-truck so that transporting it will be much easier. Slide the edge of the planter onto the hand-truck and wheel it to a safer location. Never try to carry or lift a planter that is too heavy. Everything from the planters by the front entrance to the hanging pots and window boxes should be moved if possible. Cover It Replacing a roof means that roofing debris will inevitable find its way into shrubbery and lawns.

Many contractors take great care to prevent a lot of debris from finding its way into your plants, but blowing winds and small pieces cause even the most conscience contractors to sometimes miss pieces of broken shingles. One easy way to prevent that debris from embedding itself in the branches of the bushes and trees surrounding your home, is to cover them with tarps or even old sheets. This will keep the debris from landing in the bushes and can make clean-up quicker.

A word of caution though if the roofing repairs will last for longer than a day: Plants need the sun and air to survive, so it is a good idea to uncover them after the roofers have left for the day and re-cover them the next morning. This will allow them to breathe and prevent the weight of the sheet or tarp from damaging branches and leaves. Create a Tent For particularly vulnerable plants that cannot be moved out of harm's way, creating a tent for them may be the best option. Simply covering these delicate plants with a tarp or sheet is probably not a good idea, as the weight of the covering may damage them. A simple way to avoid this is to use long sticks, posts or even tomato cages to prop a heavy duty tarp over them. The weight of the covering rests on the posts and not on the plant itself. Be sure to secure the tarp to the posts to keep it from blowing off.