The Empire State and snow are a match made in winter heaven, but sometimes the things we use to help get by the snowy, icy conditions ends up in your parks and yards.

"We've been having a lot of snow, a lot of cold conditions that usually lead to an accumulation and need for outside resources to help mitigate those situations," said arborist Lukas Suzano. "The use of salt can be okay, but excess salt can have also negative impacts when referring to our landscapes."

"A homeowner, if you're not really sure of what's going on with your tree, if you start to notice any signs of decline over the wintertime, the best thing you can do is contact your local arborists to come out and take a look at your trees with you," he continued.

Suzano and other arborists across the state can help with advice on what to do to protect these spots, or even get the process started by knowing where to start looking for issues.

"There's still a little bit of potential for exposure, especially being right off of a main road," Suzano noted. "This section is going to be heavily trafficked. So salt spray from cars, moisture is going to be able to travel several feet, especially snow being pushed up."

And after we've seen just about every neck of the woods across New York get pounded with some kind of snow this winter, it's worth checking in on your foliage and maybe take an extra trip to the car wash or store for a bucket and rags to protect even more from the salt.

"Well, I would say that the bottom of your car is irreparable, but your landscape," Suzano said. "It does take time, especially over repeated exposure year after year of just taking this beating from Mother Nature as well as everything we use to combat Mother Nature. It just takes a lot of time and a lot of resources to help keep things healthy."

Different municipalities are doing what they can to limit salt use or even use other substances to help out, but there are restrictions which mean keeping an eye on your landscape is a good idea.

"So if you can get on the forefront of that, you can minimize the effort that will be needed moving forward to keep a healthy landscape," he said.

Because the snow and salt is always short term. It melts, it gets whisked away, and taking a look at these issues is more of a 'for years to come' thing.

"While we're being frank, it's quite an investment," he added. "And if there's steps that we can take to help preserve and protect the investments of what we've put in as homeowners or what is provided in a park like setting, I think it's we owe it to ourselves to do that."