How to Protect Plants From Frost
Freezing temperatures are coming tonight and forecast to last for the next several days.
Take a drive down the street in your neighborhood, you will probably see landscape plants covered with assorted sheets, towels or frost cloth.
Those that don’t protect their frost-sensitive plants such as lantana, bougainvillea, yellow bells, orange jubilee or hibiscus will soon have plants that look like this…
In most cases, you do not have to cover your frost-sensitive plants when temps dip into the lower 30’s.
There is nothing wrong with allowing the top growth of your ornamental plants to get frost damage. You just prune it away in spring.
For those of you who don’t like the look of frost-damage, then you will need to protect your plants from the cold.
**If temperatures are predicted to dip into the 20’s – then I do recommend protecting them from frost because temps this cold can kill a plant.
I wrote a blog post earlier this year when temps hit the low 20’s. It talks about how to protect plants from frost (and how NOT to) along with the types of plants to protect.
You can read it here…
*******************
I hope you are having a great week. I must confess to being a little behind on writing blog posts this month with all the Christmas goings on 🙂
Noelle Johnson, aka, 'AZ Plant Lady' is a author, horticulturist, and landscape consultant who helps people learn how to create, grow, and maintain beautiful desert gardens that thrive in a hot, dry climate. She does this through her consulting services, her online class Desert Gardening 101, and her monthly membership club, Through the Garden Gate. As she likes to tell desert-dwellers, "Gardening in the desert isn't hard, but it is different."
I think your precaution is a good one, to keep lantanas, etc in bloom and looking OK. Even here, we've only been 25-30F a few times since Nov; some protection on these nights might be all we need in a milder-than-usual winter.
Need to pass your blog onto the new golf course superintendent, at the same development I'm doing nearby work with.
I have this rule: if it can't stand frost it gets nipped. I've tried all that covering stuff, only to have a late frost sneak up on me in late March. May as well get it over with.
I do agree it is sometimes worthwhile for a special plant in a prominent location.