Wrap up outdoor potted plants to protect them from frost for Winter
When Winter frosts are on their way, sensitive plants that aren’t practical to move into shelter should be wrapped up to protect them from the freezing weather.
This is most important for tender plants, but even relatively hardy bay leaf trees can still suffer cosmetic leaf damage.
You could wrap plants with all sorts of breathable things like hessian, bracken, or straw, but horticultural fleece makes life easy.
Solid plastic sheets and tarpaulins that trap humidity are not good.
You will need string, a knife or scissors, and, in the video below, Andy is using sheets of fleece, which we no longer sell, only horticultural fleece tubes.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT
TRANSCRIPT
Today we’re going to protect this Bay Tree as it’s being left outside. We’re just going to protect it against frosts, we’ll wrap it in fleece, wrap the stem, wrap the head and protect the pot as well.
The first thing to do is to lift it off the ground. You can just use ordinary bricks, or buy the proper pot feet. Right, so the pot you put your plant in, make sure it’s a decent quality frost-free pot that can stay outside all winter. If it’s not a frost-free pot, probably the best thing to do is you can still wrap the tree. You could probably wrap the pot as well, but it might be better just to put it into a cold green house, porch or shed over winter.
That way it won’t break apart if we get a real hard frost.
Get yourself a ball of string, a knife and some fleece.
So the first thing to do is, I’m going to wrap the stem. Start off from the bottom, tuck one end in, and start wrapping around. It doesn’t have to be really tight, but just make sure you cover the whole of the stem.
Once you’ve covered the whole on the stem, get a couple of bits of string and wrap them around the stem. And that just stops the fleece slipping down over winter.
And then the head, put the fleece on the top and wrap it around. Then, once you’ve got it around the head, tuck it in. Try and leave a little piece at the top that’s a little bit open overwinter. So just get yourself a bit of string, wrap it round a couple of times, and then tie it up.
Leave the top open a little bit and then just kind of fold it in a little bit, just a little. That lets any moisture escape.
You can do this to tender shrubs. So you’ve got bananas, bay trees, tender geraniums, anything really that you want to keep outside, just wrap them up, like that, be creative with a bit of fleece.
When Should I Put Fleece on My Plants?
Keep an eye on the weather forecast and aim to wrap your plants in fleece the day before frost is predicted.
Can I leave fleece on plants all winter?
No, you should not leave fleece on evergreen plants all Winter. Remove it as soon as the last frost has passed.
Ideally, you should also remove it during mild Winter spells and put it back when more frost is on the way. This is obviously a hassle, but worth it with your most prominent plants.
How Should I Remove Fleece?
Our top tip for removing fleece is to do it on a cloudy day, with a couple of cloudy days predicted ahead. This will avoid the risk of it getting scorched by the sun after being in the shade of the fleece.
If it’s not possible to remove the fleece on an overcast day, then unwrap it in one layer at a time, waiting 24-28 hours between each layer to give the plant time to acclimatize to the sunlight.