Covering flowers from frost

Frost Covers & Cold Snap Care

Whether you fell under the spell of some eye-catching color at the garden center or just wanted to get a jump on the gardening season, planting too early can create a crisis when a cold snap threatens. Helping your seedlings survive the big chill isn't impossible, but it does require some preparation.

In most cases, you can count on makeshift methods to protect plants when the thermometer dips. But for larger plantings, such as a vegetable garden, you'll need to arm yourself ahead of time with the right gadgets to guard plants against frosty mornings.

Know The Limits

In order to understand what steps to take when freeze warnings threaten, you need to know the point at which treasured greenery fades to frost-burned brown. The general rule of thumb is that most plants freeze when temperatures remain at 28°F for five hours.

Of course, there are exceptions to this rule. Seedlings, with their tender new leaves, often give up the ghost when temperatures dip to 32-33°F. Tropical plants have differing low-temperature thresholds. Some keel over when temps fall to 40°F; others crumble at 35°F. Other plants are just hardy by nature and can withstand temperatures as low as 18-20°F. To find the threshold for your plants, search garden books and online resources.

Quick Fixes For Frost Warnings

Pick It Up – The easiest cold-protection scheme is to move plants out of harm's way. This works with seedlings in flats and potted plants. Moving plants under a deck, into a garage or shed, or onto a porch with a roof often offers ample protection.

Count On Water – Water soil just before sundown to raise overnight air temperature around plants as the water evaporates. Fill gallon jugs or buckets with water and place them in the sun during the day. At night, move them near endangered plants. The water will moderate air temperatures; if it freezes, it will release heat. For greatest effect, paint a few water-holding containers black to maximize daytime heating.

Keep Air Moving – Cold, still air does the most damage to plants. Stir a breeze all night with an electric fan to keep frost from forming on plants. Remember to protect electrical connections from moisture.

Cover Plants – Protect plants from all but the hardest freeze (28°F for five hours) by covering them with sheets, towels, blankets, cardboard or a tarp. You can also invert baskets, coolers or any container with a solid bottom over plants. Cover plants before dark to trap warmer air. Ideally, coverings shouldn't touch foliage. Anchor fabric coverings if windy conditions threaten.

In the morning, remove coverings when temperatures rise and frost dissipates. Heat from the sun can build beneath solid coverings, and plants can die from high temperatures.

Break Out Blankets – Keep gardening blankets, often called row covers, on hand. These covers are made from synthetic fibers or plastic in varying thicknesses. Lay row covers directly on plants, or create a tunnel by suspending them over a bed using stakes.

Turn On Lights – An incandescent light bulb generates sufficient heat to raise nearby air temperature enough to protect a plant from the deep freeze. Bulbs must be close to plants (within 2-3 feet) for this technique to work. (Fluorescent bulbs don't generate enough heat for this chore.)

Protect Individual Plants – Install hot caps – rigid plastic containers with venting holes – over individual seedlings at planting time. Hot caps act like cloches (mini greenhouses), but venting holes eliminate the daily chore of placing and removing the covering. Create the equivalent of a hot cap using plastic two-liter bottles or gallon jugs with bottoms cut off and lids removed (but saved). Replace lids at night when cold temperatures swoop through.

A twist on the hot cap idea is a Wall O'Water tepee, which encircles individual plants with a sleeve of water-filled tubes. The water absorbs the sun's heat during the day. At night, as the water slowly freezes, it releases the stored radiant heat of the sun, keeping air inside the tepee frost-free.

Best Way To Cover And Keep Plants From Freezing

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Environmental Problems

By: Heather Rhoades

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Gardeners plant flowers, shrubs and trees that can survive in their garden during typical weather. But what can a gardener do when the weather is anything but typical? Unexpected freezes can devastate landscapes and gardens. They can leave a gardener wondering how to protect plants from freezing, and question what is the best way to cover and keep plants from freezing.

At What Temperature Do Plants Freeze?

When cold weather comes your way, your first thought will be at what temperature do plants freeze, in other words, how cold is too cold? There is no easy answer to this.

Different plants freeze and die at different temperatures. That is why they are given a hardiness rating. Some plants produce special hormones that keep them from freezing, and these plants have a lower hardiness rating (meaning they can survive colder weather) than plants who produce less of this hormone.

That being said, there are also different definitions of survival. A plant may lose all its foliage during a freeze, and some can regrow from the stems or even the roots. So, while the leaves cannot survive a certain temperature, other parts of the plant can.

How to Protect Plants from Freezing

If you are only expecting a light freeze, you may be able to protect plants in a freeze simply by covering them with a sheet or a blanket. This acts like insulation, keeping warm air from the ground around the plant. The warmth may be enough to keep a plant from freezing during a short cold snap.

For added protection when you protect plants in a freeze, you can place plastic over the sheets or blankets to help keep warmth in. Never cover a plant with just plastic, however, as the plastic will damage the plant. Make sure that a cloth barrier is between the plastic and the plant.

Be sure to remove the sheets and blanket and plastic first thing in the morning after an overnight cold snap. If you do not do so, condensation can build up and freeze again under the covering, which will damage the plant.

When protecting plants in a freeze that’s longer or deeper, you may have no choice but to expect to sacrifice all or part of the plant in hopes that the roots will survive. Start by heavily mulching the roots of the plant with either wood mulch or hay. For added protection, you can nestle gallon jugs of warm water into the mulch each night. This will help drive off some of the cold that can kill the roots.

If you have time before a freeze happens, you can also create insulation barriers around a plant as a way how to protect plants from freezing. Tie up the plant as neatly as possible. Drive stakes that are as tall as the plant into the ground around the plant. Wrap the stakes in burlap so that the plant appears to be fenced in. Stuff the inside of this fence with hay or leaves. Again, you can place milk jugs of warm water on the inside, at the base of this fence each night to help supplement the heat. A string of Christmas lights wrapped around the plant can also help add additional heat. As soon as the freeze passes, remove the covering so that the plant can get the sunlight it needs.

Watering the soil (not the leaves or stems of the plants) will also help the soil retain heat and can help the plant’s roots and lower branches survive.

This article was last updated on 02/07/22

SHELTER OF PLANTS FOR WINTER

Warm summer, when most of the time we wanted to spend in the garden, cold, snowfalls and cold wind came to us for long months. At this time, we are especially pleased to feel the warmth of the hearth. But the inhabitants of our gardens are immersed in a state of rest and patiently waiting for spring.

Winter is the most severe test for plants in our harsh climate. For trees and shrubs, this is much more relevant than for herbaceous plants, since their buds are high above the ground, not protected by snow cover and therefore open to winds and frost. In order not to be disappointed in the spring when you see dead or badly damaged plants, you must follow a few rules.

First, the main thing is to choose a frost-resistant assortment, plants that tolerate the conditions of our winter well. The quality of planting material also plays a very important role. Plants should have a well-developed root system that is not damaged during digging and transportation. Sometimes in the production of planting material, technologies are used to make plants grow faster, use excessive amounts of fertilizers and stimulants. Therefore, you need to purchase planting material only in well-known, reputable nurseries.

Unfortunately, among the suppliers and sellers of plants there are unscrupulous people. Indeed, now on sale you can find a large number of doomed exotics. Moreover, the labels often have ridiculous names, and the seller cannot answer buyers' questions or, even worse, gives incorrect information. Many times already we had to go to the sites where the owners in the spring found out their sad skeletons instead of expensive and very beautiful plants bought on the market.

Secondly, we need to help the plants go into a dormant state. In the second half of summer, young shoots stop growing in length and begin to be covered with bark, which protects the branches in winter. Branches that have not formed a bark will not survive until spring. This happens with southern plants, which have a longer growing season and do not have time to go through it during our northern summer. From the end of July, you can not feed trees and shrubs with fertilizers containing nitrogen, which stimulates growth. To prepare for winter, they need potassium and phosphorus (fertilizer doses should be read on the package).

Thirdly, it is necessary to cover the plants that are planted this year and must undergo acclimatization. Then the plants adapt and they no longer need shelter. This applies to trees and shrubs brought from warmer places. Some particularly delicate plants, such as rhododendrons, are covered every year. This, of course, adds to the hassle in the garden, but the flowering of these plants is so brightly unusual and exquisite that all the labor and time spent is paid off by the joy that we get when contemplating this flowering.

Shelter is carried out when the air temperature drops to -15 C at night. This usually happens in mid-November. You should not do this earlier, because the plants need to get a little hardened, get used to low temperatures. Night frosts are not terrible for them, and small frosts (-5 C) are not dangerous either. The main covering material is spruce spruce branches, nothing better has been invented yet. It helps to accumulate snow, which protects the plant from severe frost. In the Botanical Garden of Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov, an experiment was carried out: the air temperature was measured under the shelter and outside it. Under shelter, the temperature did not fall below -5 C, even if it was -30 degrees below zero. Under such a shelter, plants do not overheat when thaws occur, and in the middle of winter there are positive temperatures. When it was -5 C outside, -3 C under the shelter, if the air temperature dropped to -32 C, it was not lower than -5 C under the shelter. However, if there is no snow. The temperature under the shelter is almost the same as the temperature outside it.

Mice love to play pranks in such cozy huts in winter. These small rodents eat the bark of trees and shrubs, which sometimes, if the bark is damaged along the ring, leads to the death of the plant. Mice especially love fruit trees. Poison has to be placed under cover. The most convenient way is wheat grains treated with poison. You can buy them at hardware stores and garden centers. Another measure that prevents mouse lawlessness is the trampling of trunk circles. Compaction of snow prevents small animals from getting to the trunk and damaging the plants.

The shelter must not under any circumstances damage or break branches of plants. Therefore, sprawling bushes are first recommended to be carefully tied with twine, then wrapped with burlap and only then covered with spruce branches in three layers. Fragile plants cannot be tied; special frames are prepared for them, which are covered with burlap and covered with spruce branches. For rhododendron bushes, these can be cubes, and for young Christmas trees, pyramids with three or four faces.

Frosty, snowless winters pose a great danger, when even a good shelter may not save the plants from damage. It's not scary if the frosts last 1-2 days, it's bad when they stand for a long time. Therefore, those plants that require shelter are best placed in places protected from the wind, where more snow accumulates.

The spruce branches should be placed in such a way that the upper side of the spruce branches, where the needles are thicker, which means it will better accumulate snow, looks up. The spruce branches are also fixed with twine.

The branches and buds are adapted to withstand severe frosts, which cannot be said about the roots. They suffer a lot during snowless winters, so you should try to accumulate snow on the tree trunks. The same spruce spruce branches can help a lot with this.

Frost cracks may form on open tree trunks. To avoid this, they are covered with garden whitewash, wrapped with nylon ribbons or spruce branches.

In spring, when the temperature is 0 - +5 C, and the snow begins to melt, the shelter is removed. This usually happens in the second half of March. You do not need to open the plants immediately, it is better to do it gradually, first remove the spruce branches, and after a few days the burlap.

Do not use lutrasil (spunbond, agrotex) for winter shelter of plants - a light non-woven material of white (or black) color. This material, however, is suitable for protecting plants from spring frosts. Its structure is such that, while letting heat in, it does not release it back. In winter, plants under such shelter suffer from overheating. Unfortunately, cases of death of plants covered with lutrasil do not become rarer, and very often one has to explain to perplexed people that their plants did not freeze, but burned down. Interestingly, the death of coniferous plants can not be noticed immediately. At first, when they are freed from lutrasil, beautiful pines, decorative Christmas trees, junipers and thujas look very fresh and lively, but after a couple of weeks their needles begin to wither and then crumble at once. Once we had to see such a sad picture in the village on Rublyovka, when all the evergreens covered with lutrasil died, and if they remained alive, they irrevocably lost their shape and attractiveness.

Fourthly, the danger threatens the plants even when the winter is over, and the frosts are left behind, when the sun becomes brighter. First of all, this applies to conifers, which suffer from sunburn in the second half of winter. Bright light is amplified by the reflection from the snow and damages the needles. You can protect plants from the sun with the help of burlap, in which the crown is simply wrapped. You can remove this shelter when all the snow has melted. After a few years, the plants will adapt and will not need to be covered.

It is impossible not to say about how the lawn winters, because these are also plants. Lawn grasses should also not be fertilized with nitrogen fertilizers starting in August. From now on, only potassium and phosphorus, elements that help plants prepare for winter, can be given. Do not mow the lawn before the onset of winter, let the grass 8-10 cm long go under the snow. Just like for woody plants, for the lawn the best protection from frost is a soft blanket of snow. In rare cases, when there are strong thaws and snow melts, an ice crust can form on the surface of the lawn, which must be broken, because it does not allow grasses to breathe. And of course, it is unacceptable to arrange an ice skating rink on the lawn.

Winter is not a dull time in the garden, it also has its own special charms, because nature is beautiful at any time of the year. When else, if not in winter, you can appreciate the harmony and majesty of the crowns of trees that are not hidden by foliage. I just want to take paper, black paint and capture the picturesque graphics of the branches. There are plants that delight us in winter with their unusually colored bark, bright fruits that remain on the branches for a long time and invite birds and squirrels to our gardens. To make these cheerful guests visit you more often, place feeders in the garden and do not forget to add grains, seeds and nuts to them.

Our people love to do everything themselves: build a house, furnish the interior, plan a garden, arrange a lawn, buy and plant plants. But we highly recommend that everyone at least invite specialists to select an assortment of plants. And be sure to get advice from them about planting and caring for these plants. This will help you avoid the risk of buying a non-hardy plant, make mistakes when planting it, guarantee the survival of trees and shrubs, and you will receive only joy and pleasure from your garden and never disappointment and annoyance.

Bird cherry - Padus serrulata

cand. biol. science Svetlana Chizhova

step-by-step instructions with expert advice

Shelters require roses and hydrangeas, and grapes for fruit crops. But it's important to do it right.

Roses

There are many options for sheltering roses, some of them quite ridiculous. Meanwhile, the survival of roses directly depends on the correct shelter; without protection, they can withstand a maximum of -15 ° C. And Russian winters are much colder.

When to cover. Roses need to be covered in late October - early November. The timing is blurry because it all depends on the weather. In the literature, it is often advised: “It is necessary to finally cover the roses after the onset of stable negative temperatures, when the topsoil freezes. ” This can be tracked if you live in a country house.

And what if you visit the dacha only on weekends? It may still be warm next weekend, but in the middle of the week severe frosts will strike? This is exactly what summer residents think and try to insulate their plants early. But you should not do this - in warm weather they can support. Here it is better to linger a bit - after the positive temperature there is no sharp cooling down to -15 ° С.

What really needs to be considered is precipitation. After rain, roses cannot be covered - in a humid environment, and even in cool weather, there is a high risk of developing fungal infections. So wait for clear weather.

Before covering the roses, it would be nice to treat them with a solution of ferrous sulfate (3%) or Maxim (1) - these preparations will protect plants from fungal diseases.

What to cover. In the middle lane, 2 methods have proven themselves best.

Nonwoven. This is the material that summer residents usually use to cover seedlings in May - it protects from frost. But if you cover them with roses in 2 - 3 layers, they are able to survive even very severe frosts.

It is necessary to cover with a non-woven fabric gradually - at the end of October with one layer, after a couple of weeks, at the beginning of November, with a second, and if necessary, with a third. It is enough to simply put the material on top of the bushes and press down the edges with stones or something heavy so that it is not blown away by the wind. Of course, before sheltering, rose shoots must be bent to the ground and pinned so that they do not rise in winter.

Sawdust. This option is even simpler - the shoots of roses also need to be bent to the ground, pinned, and the center of the bush covered with sawdust 15 - 20 cm high. If there is a lot of snow in winter, roses will overwinter without problems. If it turns out to be snowless and with severe frosts, then the shoots, of course, will freeze. But the base of the bush will remain. In the spring, new young shoots will grow from there and bloom in the same summer.

In the spring, sawdust should be removed from the bush as soon as possible, as soon as the snow melts, otherwise the bushes may dry up.

Hydrangeas

There are several types of hydrangeas, but not all of them are suitable for harsh climates. For example, large-leaved hydrangea, which is very popular in garden centers, does not hibernate in the middle lane - its frost resistance limit is -15 ° C (2). Some lovers of beauty dig it up in the fall, plant it in large tubs and take it to the basement, but, firstly, this method is also not very reliable, and secondly, not every city dweller has a basement. So it is better to refuse the purchase of these beauties.

Only tree and paniculate hydrangeas can be covered in winter. Most of their varieties calmly withstand frosts down to -35 ° C without any protection, but there are several varieties that have lower frost resistance, down to -29 ° C. This is where they need to be protected.

When to cover. Hydrangeas should be covered at the end of October. But if the weather is warm, it is better to wait a little with shelter, postpone it until the beginning of November.

What to cover. For weakly frost-resistant varieties of hydrangeas, the best shelter is snow. However, their bushes are high, about 1.5 m, and it is unrealistic to throw so much snow over the plants. Besides, there is not always a lot of it. Therefore, in winter, plants need to be laid on the ground. To do this, the branches must be tied with a rope, and then carefully pull the bush to the ground and lay it on the boards (it is undesirable on the ground, the shoots can be propped up from moisture).

You can leave it like that. But it’s even better to throw spruce or pine spruce branches on top of the laid hydrangeas - it helps to hold snow over the bushes.

If weather forecasters promise that the winter will be very cold and snowless, then for greater reliability, you can sprinkle the stacked hydrangeas with dry leaves and cover with Spunbond-60.

Grapes

Not so long ago, grapes were exclusively a southern crop, but modern varieties have stepped far north. However, he remained sensitive to cold, so he needs to be covered for the winter. Even if you were sold uncovered grapes, do not flatter yourself - this is just a trick of the sellers. Without shelter in regions with a cold climate, only two varieties winter: Lydia and Isabella. The rest need to be insulated.

When to cover. Many summer residents are in a hurry to shelter grapes, they begin to insulate them already in early October - they are afraid that after frost the vine will become hard and it will be difficult to lay it on the ground. But you should not be afraid of this, the vine normally fits even after frost. In the middle lane, grapes are usually covered in late October - early November. It is possible later, up to the beginning of December, but it is important to be in time before frost -15 ° С. At sub-zero temperatures, snow usually already falls, and it is the best protection for grapes from frost (3).

And it is also important that at the moment of shelter there should be clear, dry weather. In the rain, you can not cover the grapes - it will sop.

What to cover. Here, as with roses, there are also many ways, but there are only 2 truly reliable options.

Coniferous branches. This is the simplest and most reliable method. The grapes must be removed from the support, rolled into a ring, laid on dry ground and crushed with bricks. And on top, sketch a pine or spruce spruce branch with a height of 20 - 30 cm. Under such a shelter, it can withstand frosts down to -32 ° С.

True, this method has one drawback - it is not suitable for sandy areas, because the soil freezes under the spruce branches and the roots of the grapes may die. For all other types of soil - ideal!

sawdust. This method is reliable in all conditions, even on the sands.

The bottom line is this: you need to lay a thick film on the ground so that the sawdust does not get damp from the ground. Lay a vine rolled into a ring on the film and cover it with sawdust with a layer of 20 cm. And on top of them - a slate sheet - it will protect from rain.

With this type of shelter, the grapes can withstand any frost.

Covering flowers from frost

Frost Covers & Cold Snap Care

More Lawn Solution Articles for You

Best Way To Cover And Keep Plants From Freezing

At What Temperature Do Plants Freeze?

How to Protect Plants from Freezing

SHELTER OF PLANTS FOR WINTER

step-by-step instructions with expert advice

Roses

Hydrangeas

Grapes

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