Protecting your Plants with Frost Blankets

Our beautiful October days will usher in those frosty mornings soon. We all will scurry around looking for sheets and whatever else we can find to protect our plants. I have discovered the perfect solution to keeping my tender perennials safe over the winter and have them up and blooming earlier than my neighbors. I use Frost Blankets.

Frost blankets are inexpensive, easy to store after winter use, water passes through them and the temperature under them will be about 10 degrees higher than the outside air. I use them in my nursery in order to have my shrubs, hosta and blooming perennials ready to sell in early May. Here is a picture of some of my plants under frost blankets already this year. We have had danger of frost this week so I didn't leave anything to chance. I will remove these for a week or so now that it looks like we will get 70's the rest of the week -  life in the mid-south! The clip is how I secure them to my raised beds. Landscaping pins will work to hold them to the ground. Some people make mini-hoop houses from bike flag holders or PVC pipe too.

 

I store mine in a big plastic tub in the summer. I just slide it under a shelf in my greenhouse but it could go in a garage, shed or anywhere you have room. Heck, you could put them in a drawer somewhere too. These handy blankets come in various sizes and are readily available on line. One of my favorite suppliers is Greenhouse Mega Store . Below is the one I bought.