How to keep your tender plants happy on a frosty morning.
Long winter nights have arrived and while our social feeds fill up with photos of aurora australis lighting up the clear night sky, it’s easy to forget that quite often auroras are followed by icy cold mornings. That’s because cloud cover acts like a warm blanket insulating us from freezing temperatures, while clear and still nights, although perfect for auroras, may mean temperatures below 0°C.
Utilising microclimates
The best protection from frost is to choose frost-hardy plants that are suited to your area, but if you’ve fallen in love with a plant that needs a little extra care, you can create pockets of microclimates in your garden by using canopies as shelter or a warm north-facing wall as a source of passive heat.
Watering in the morning
While it may seem counterintuitive, the best thing to do on a frosty morning is to whip out the hose and give the leaves a good water. Watering the foliage can melt the ice that has formed on the leaves quickly, before it has a chance to cause any mushy damage.
Strengthening tonic
Over the winter period, you can also provide your plants with seaweed tonic. Seaweed tonic is not a fertiliser and will not promote new growth but will instead encourage more roots and strengthen the cell walls of plants affording them more protection from ice.
Covering up
Using horticultural fleece as a cover is a wonderful way to extend the growing season and to keep frost off prized plants. As a quick overnight fix, you can also place old blankets, bedsheets, or even cardboard directly over sensitive plants. Just remember to remove your emergency fix before you get on with the rest of your day. This method is particularly useful if you’ve put your spuds in too early in spring.
So the next time you wake up in the middle of the night to take a picture of a beautiful aurora, have a think about areas in your garden that may need a little protection and tuck your plants into bed.
