The Field Journal

Living in Michiana means accepting a hard truth: You are going to spend a significant portion of your winter moving snow. Whether it’s the 5:00 AM wake-up call to clear the driveway before work or the back-breaking heavy wet snow at the end of the driveway left by the city plow, snow removal is a chore that costs you time and energy. But what if the snow just... disappeared? Heated driveway systems (often called snow-melt systems) used to be reserved for luxury ski resorts. T

In the middle of July, when we are designing a driveway, it is easy to suffer from "Winter Amnesia." We look at the beautiful pavers, the lush planting beds, and the elegant retaining walls, and we forget one massive, heavy reality: In six months, we are going to need a place to put 40 inches of snow. Most landscape designs fail in January. They box the homeowner in. They place walls too close to the edge, leaving no room for the plow blade. They create bottlenecks that trap