How to Protect Your Beautiful Plants from Frost
Have danger of Spring frosts in the weather forecast? Wondering how to protect your plants?
Keep calm and read on about how this flower farmer keeps plants safe ‘old school’ style without any plastics!
Risk of FROST this week in CNY!
Yikes! FROST!
Five letters that can make a Spring gardener shutter and spit out their tea!
Especially if you brought home greenhouse raised plants like annuals and veggie starts— they are just not adapted to cool temps!
Heck those hot house grown plants may even look as it is JULY instead of early May!
Here at the farm I too have tender seedlings I planted out in early Spring. Plus some French pumpkins!
But seriously…
Risk of frost is no laughing matter—
Why should you pay attention to cold temps & frost in Spring?
You’ve spent time, money and energy planning and planting your garden. It would be a shame to see it all lost due to cold temperatures and one night of Spring frost!
Young plants need protection
Whether an annual or perennial- cool or warm season plants ALL PLANTS CAN BE DAMAGED BY COLD TEMPS & FROST
Frosts freeze water in plant cells! It’s basically frost bite to your plants!
In Autumn, cold temps and frosts trigger dormancy in biennial and perennial plants. In Spring, warmer periods than normal say an few 80* days can push foliage growth. This leaves the plant at risk of foliar damage and frost-kill during surprise frosts.
If the plant has established roots over the Winter it may survive a Spring frost.
Some plants LIKE frost..
Some plants say Sweet Peas, Virginia Bluebells, Rhubarb, or Swiss Chard for example like cold temps.
Many will laugh in the face of frost because they are COOL SEASON plants! Some even grow better after such cold temps!
But many plants especially warm season annuals and young perennials frost is a problem. Why?
COLD TEMPS STUNT PLANTS GROWTH!
Temps in the 30s & 40s can set many young plants back by weeks or worse ‘winter kill’ them.
Look I get it… After a long hard Winter, maybe we were overeager to get planting tomatoes or other ‘warm season’ plants.
And that’s ok— but after all our hard work to settle everyone of them into the garden we don’t want to stand idly by while frost takes them out!
How I handle risk of frost at the farm…
Frosts happen my friends…
To reduce frost damage here at Lazy Dirt Wildflower Farm I have lots of tricks up my farmer sleeves!
Most of them are PLANNING!
Trick #1
KNOW YOUR PLANTS COLD TOLERANCE
Use a planting calendar or list to know the cold tolerance of plants and WHEN specific plants can go outside. For example, warm season annuals like basil, squash & tomatoes seedlings NEVER go outside until AFTER Memorial Weekend— and heck this year with the cold & wet it maybe into JUNE before I risk planting them outside!
Likewise, very tender seedlings of native plants started in soil blocks in early Spring don’t go out to the field until early May (again depending on species tolerance of cold)
Trick #2
Plant the bulk of native perennials in early September!
In Autumn, soil is warm from Summer’s heat. In the event of Autumn frosts, soil temps are still warm in the 50s and even 60s! This warmth allows plant’s roots to continue growth until dormancy.
They grow deeper roots only to ‘sleep’ through Winter. In Spring, they break dormancy and can laugh in the face of cooler temps. Why?
BECAUSE THEY HAVE ESTABLISHED ROOT SYSTEMS that move water in the plants cells like ‘anti-freeze’!!
See… Autumn truly is the best time for planting native perennials!
Spring planting is in many ways the opposite!
Planting out in Spring means your plants need to work quickly to establish roots in cooler soil temps.
Unlike Autumn, when frosts ‘put perennials to sleep’ — a Spring frost can put them at risk for frost damage or worse kill your plants!!!
Now.. I still plant my annuals and perennials in early Spring.
For example, in last week’s dry spell I planted out native seedlings in the Meadow Walk. Drifts of 30 each of Penstemon digitalis (Foxglove Beardtongue), Agastache foeniculum (Anise Hyssop) and Monarda fistulosa (Wild Bergamot).
However, I’m vigilant about frost protection!
Unlike seedlings planted out in September, this Spring batch of seedlings are very fragile to cold, winds and rains.
For months they received tender love care inside…
The Spring batches are sown in March in soil blocks.
Grown out to 3-4 sets of leaves by constant attention to light, water and food. Seriously— every single day they are tended too SEVERAL TIMES!
Once they are ready to go outside, slowly over several weeks they are acclimated to the ‘wild life’.
They are gradually hardened off to Spring temperatures, rain and wind. Planted into cool soils they are thriving because they are species that would normally be growing in these conditions.
HOWEVER THEY WILL STILL GET FROST PROTECTION!
Why? Because these young plants do not have the established root systems to survive a hard frost.
So trick #3 is FROST PROTECTION
How do I protect them?
Why I simply TUCK THEM IN!
That’s right— and without any plastic!
Row Covers
Many gardeners and flower farmer's grow in rows and use ‘row covers’— 6’ wide and very long ‘fabric’ covers.
I do as well for many seedlings. But instead of the usually poly (plastic) row covers I use cotton row covers.
Cotton row covers are eco-friendly and so versatile.
They protect against frost down to 38 degrees, wind damage & insect protection (squash beetles I’m glaring at you!)
On hot Summer days, cotton row covers help shade plants AND hold in a bit of moisture. This is super beneficial for tomatoes let me tell you!
I found my cotton row covers at Gardener’s Supply
BUT YOU DON’T NEED TO BUY ROW COVERS!
USE COTTON SHEETS INSTEAD
The cotton row covers are great for the field but old cotton sheets are still my go to for the gardens
Like Amy Andrychowicz at Get Busy Gardening, I LOVE using sheets in the garden for frost protection & Summer shade.
I have yet to photograph my old vintage sheets in protection mode like these are in Amy’s fabulous garden!
Garden goals! LOL!
But what if it gets REALLY cold?
Like in the low 30s to even 20 degrees?!? YIKES!!!
You can double layer the cotton sheets. Here at the farm I go BIGGER if we get those really cold temps unexpectedly
In that case, I pull out the BURLAP rolls
Burlap is an vital tool for the garden!
Shade, warmth and it’s even a natural mulch!
You just knew there was burlap involved didn’t ya!
Yeah I’m a huge fan of burlap and can’t say no to a roll of 100’ on sale for $34 at Deaton’s Agway in Pulaski.
For frost protection, I add it on top of the cotton sheeting. It becomes another layer of insulation
This protects from the cold AND wind. (Young plants are very fragile against wind chill too!)
How do I hold this up off the plants?
Well~ remember the Hummingbird garden blog post where I shared the trick to see them sit still in your garden?
STICKS..
That’s right. STICKS. Normal everyday sticks about 2-3’ feet long. Just stick ‘em into the ground and lay the fabric over them.
No fancy (and expensive) metal or plastic hoops and clamps. No hoop benders either.
JUST STICKS
Throw a little dirt along the edges of the fabric to hold it down against the wind.
DONE.
Once the danger of frost is past roll up the sheets and burlap until you need them for Summer shade.
If they are wet, dry on the clothes line or grass before putting them away! Or less you’ll get mildew on them!
Protect your plants from frost this Spring!
Take simple steps using what you all ready have on hand.
Learn more about your plants needs and growing conditions
Use Nature’s timing!
Plant cool season annuals and perennials in early September (6-8 weeks BEFORE the first frosts)
Wait to plant warm season plants until night and soil temps are over 60*
In the event of surprise frosts or low temps BE PREPARED to cover plants with old sheets, newspaper, burlap.
So who’s afraid of frost?
Not you! All you have to do now is be mindful of the weather!
