Autumn is the best time of year to get out in your garden and protect your sensitive and tender plants. While battling weather conditions is part of nature for all plants, you might want to consider giving your favourite plants a little help during the bitterly cold winter months. The impacts of frost, snow, wind and rain can seriously damage plants so it’s important to give them some protection to prevent frozen roots, foliar damage and even death.
Some of the more common ways to protect your plants is fleece. Although the fleece is a thin fabric, it’s amazing how much it can protect your plant, especially if you’ve got new plants as you can just lay the fleece over the top. With some plants you can even wrap them up in the fleece to keep them warm too.
If it’s possible, another way to protect your plants is by bringing them inside. If you’ve got tender plants, such as lemon verbena you can protect them by placing them on a south facing wall as south facing walls collect a lot of solar heat. Alternatively, you can keep them inside the garage but if you’re going to do this make sure you only do it to keep them warm overnight and bring them out again on a sunny morning as the lack of sunlight can do a lot of damage to your plants.
Remember to keep an eye on the weather and if they start mentioning frost, look into your garden and see if you’ve got any tender plants that you’ve moved out there. I know it’s hard but try to have a bit of patience over the winter months too and don’t take your plants out too early. Sometimes it’s better to be more patient and keep them inside.
