Materials
Snow, Salt and What They Do to Hardscape
Six months of the year the hardscape is being shovelled, ploughed and de-iced. Almost nobody specifies for that, and it is where surfaces quietly fail.
Hardscape gets chosen in summer for how it looks in summer. Then winter arrives and the same surface spends months under snow, being scraped, and having chemicals put on it. Two or three cycles of that and the difference between a surface chosen with winter in mind and one that was not becomes obvious.
De-icers are chemistry, not just salt
Different products behave differently and so do different surfaces. Some concrete units and some natural stone tolerate de-icers well; others spall, pit or stain. The damage is usually not immediate - it accumulates over several winters, which is why it is easy to miss the connection.
The practical approach is to identify which parts of the hardscape will actually be treated - typically the route from the drive to the front door, and any steps - and choose those areas on salt tolerance. A rear patio that never gets de-iced can be chosen purely on appearance.
Ask the supplier the specific question
Not "is this good for winter" but "how does this unit respond to de-icing chemicals, and is there a product you would avoid on it". A supplier who works locally will have an answer. One who does not is worth noticing.
Shovels and blades find every high point
A surface that is very slightly uneven is invisible in August and catches a shovel every time in January. Worse, a lipped joint or a proud unit is exactly what a plough blade hooks, and that pulls units out rather than just chipping them.
Two details follow. First, a surface intended to be cleared should be laid flat and stay flat - which is another argument for the base work. Second, on drives and aprons the edge detail matters: a blade approaching a raised edge at an angle will find it.
Where the snow goes
Rarely considered at design stage and worth thirty seconds. Cleared snow gets piled somewhere, that pile is heavy, and it melts in one place - repeatedly, all winter. Piling it consistently against a wall, onto a planted bed, or over a spot that already drains badly creates a problem that shows up in April.
Freeze-thaw at the surface
Beyond the ground movement covered on the clay page, there is a smaller version happening in the surface itself. Water gets into a porous unit or an open joint, freezes and expands. Dense units with well-filled joints are far less exposed to it, which is a good reason to keep jointing topped up rather than treating it as optional maintenance.
Two things worth doing every autumn
Top up any joints that have lost material, so there are fewer places for water to sit. And check that the drainage path off the hardscape is clear before the first freeze, because water that cannot leave in November is ice in December in exactly the place you did not want it.