How To Protect Plants & Shrubs Before A Freeze

Kelly:

Hi, I’m Kelly with Plants For All Seasons, and today we’re going to talk about covering your plants during a freeze, mainly your shrubbery or annual flowers, if we’re going to be at freezing or having a frost.

We’re going to do a demonstration here. Guys, can you go ahead and spread out and cover these shrubs? Unfold your blankets and let’s get it covered front to back. We want to tuck them in, cover the whole thing. Let’s pretend this is a flower bed, guys. It’s not in the pots. Here we go.

So we are covering around the whole plant. We are getting top to bottom coverage so that the soil … You’re pinning down your blankets or you’re using rocks or tucking around the blanket to keep the heat that is evaporating from the soil coming up onto the plants, because heat rises.

So they’re tucking the blankets around. You want to do anything you can to secure your blankets for the frost or freeze so that they don’t blow off. We want to cover all different kinds of shrubs if it’s a frost. Mainly your tropical things are … Sensitive new growth, you would want to cover.

Hardier plants don’t need coverage, like your Ligustrums and things like that, no matter how cold we get. So you want to choose who you need to protect and get them covered with a nice insulated blanket, which is sold in all of your garden centers.

You don’t necessarily want to just throw your sheets out on your plants because they’re going to not breathe properly and hold in the heat. You would not want to use plastic, because if you don’t get it off quick enough, then we’re having a greenhouse effect and you’re melting your plants when that sun comes back out and it gets really yucky and gross.

So to cover your plants, remember, cover top to bottom, all the way to the soil. Get it tucked in or pinned in or throw some rocks down, whatever you can to secure your blankets, and keep them warm for the freeze.