Protect plants from a freeze with a greenhouse

Texas Garden Guy here:

Hey guys, Texas Garden Guy here, and today we’re going to talk about greenhouses and freeze protection. So there’s a couple of different greenhouses you can go with. This is my newest greenhouse. It is a actual greenhouse structure, you can see the metal frame and the polycarbonate panels. This is a very affordable option, I think I paid less than $400 for this kit. And I keep all of my cactus, my succulents, plumerias, things like that that will not handle the freeze very well. You do have to heat this when it gets cold. I do put a little space heater out here that is waterproof. Make sure you use a GFCI for all that. But things like cactuses, succulents, your desert roses, your plumerias, you definitely want to protect those from a freeze anytime we’re going to get that cold, which is not very often here in Houston.

There’s another option, if you don’t want a big structure like this, you can either get a pop-up, one like this over here that just goes up and you put a tarp over it, or even a bigger version like this one. This is my 12-by-20 greenhouse. I keep the frame up year-round, but I only put the plastic tarp up and the in-walls when we’re going to get cold. So this is where I keep all my citrus trees, a lot of my hanging baskets. You can see a lot of my desert roses and cactus that are in here, especially the citrus, we’ve got a lot of lemons, and got some calamondins right here, these are really good, really sour little citruses right here. It’s funny, a lot of things will start to fruit and ripen over winter, so if you can protect them and keep them warm, they’ll do even better. So having a little pop-up greenhouse is not the worst investment, if you’ve spent all this money on stuff like citrus and things that’ll freeze back, having a little pop-up greenhouse is not the worst investment in the world.