Ruud Kleinpaste: Covering and protecting your garden from frost

Winter is a mere 2 weeks away and that means the coldest periods are very nigh indeed. Frost is –for some plant species– quite damaging. 

Growth basically stops; Invertebrates tend to hibernate, and our birds will go through a hungry phase, frantically looking for something to eat. 

Traditionally, many gardeners find ways to protect their plants and their soils; covering these is often the best way to keep everything intact. 

Starting with Compost heaps: Drape tarpaulin over the top and keep it down with some bricks or heavy wood; alternatively: get some pea straw and put that over the compost (at least 10 cm thick).  

Pea straw. Photo / Supplied 

If you are in an area where frosts can be too much for, say, fruit trees such as citrus, then Mulching the root zone might be a good preventative action: Citrus are “surface-rooting” and hence do not like a low temperature, so it pays to keep them mulched. Bark, Compost, Chippered branches, Organic matter is useful; anything that suppresses the cold nights!  

Mulch for winter. Photo/ Supplied 

Lemons and other citrus plants are currently developing fruits. Frost Cloth is often a good preventative cover that will make a few degrees difference. There’s even a “Liquid Frost cloth” that will protect plants up to a -3-degree frost. Spray this Liquid VaporGuard over the sensitive plants well before the evening, so that the wax can set. 

In really bad frosts (more than –3 degrees) it pays to drape some material frost cloth over the shrub or tree as well.  Extra Protection! 

Late frost. Photo / Supplied 

Another way to protect your plants is by positioning them under an existing tree that keeps its leaves in winter. In our Port Hills Garden we are lucky to get very few frosts in winter – on a clear frosty night, the cold air will usually tumble down the hill, taking that damaging stuff away. 

But if we are expecting a mean frosty night we simply position the sensitive, potted plants under the Eucalyptus trees. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack team podcast
from News Talks at be.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Rude climb passes our man in the garden. He's with
a snaw, a cult rude.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Heik Cura Jack. Yeah, in the garden, all right, because
it's time to close things up, don't you think?

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Wow, it's time to start protecting things a little bit,
isn't it. It's getting pretty nippy?

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, it is, it is. You're all right in Auckland,
though you can basically keep going.

Speaker 4 (00:29):
I'm larger, right, yeah, yeah, but but I mean, having
having spent the bsiers of my life, my formative years
in the three, I know how frosty it can get
in christ Church.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Funny you sick. I would call it in the what
I call it a CHC. Yeah, that's an airline code.
You call it the old three. That's your telephone note.
You know that's good? All right? Yeah? So yeah, so
you know what? You know how that looked when the
port hills are selling to get cloudy and there's snow
coming down and some all that stuff. So basically I

(01:01):
just want to have a little chat about it. Growth
of plants basically stops. It is time of the year. Anyway,
and everybody hibernates. Insects and birds will go through all
sorts of hungry phases, you name it. But how about
your soil you Sometimes people don't really think about it,
but soil sometimes get frozen as well. And so I

(01:23):
want to start with compost first, the compost heap. If
you've got a compost heap and that freezes, basically all
the creepy crawlies that live in the compost heap are
also slowing down so much that there isn't a great
deal of compost being made. So I would always sa,
if you've got an open compost heap, put some type
pallen over the top, or an enormous smack of pea

(01:45):
straw right, really good and thick, and that basically keeps
the if you like the environment down below the down
unders keeps them going and keep making composts. That's that's important. Nice.
And another example, do you have citrus in your gun?
You have limes and lemons.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
And yeah, the lemons like a grade actually moment.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Yeah, because they're fruiting eggs.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
They certainly are. Yeah, and the fruiting mutch. I've got
a much more plentiful crop than this time last year,
which is.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Nice, which is quite logic because the lemon has a
year on year off quite often. So if you want
it more a year on year on, have three of these,
three of them next to each other, if you like,
and at least one will be doing you know what
I mean. But that's another story. So what I do
with the cynrusi is very simple. You do the whole
surface again, put organic matter in back all or compost again,

(02:39):
or that those chippered branches if you like. And basically
that means that these plants are fine. They're doing everything
they need to do without being hassled by the frost.
So that's important. There's another way to go, and I
think I might mention that frost cloth is really important,
but there's also a material called liquid frost cloth that

(03:02):
you spray on the plants that you don't want to
get frosted, and that is a it's a waxy material,
yes kind of stuff material, Yes totally, it's got Yeah,
it's got no no nasty chemicals in it. No, no,
that's it. And but it only goes to minus three.
So if you live somewhere in yeah, yeah, yeah, you'll

(03:27):
probably have to put some extra frost cross over the top.
But generally speaking you can do that in Auckland quite easily.
A bit to minus three, no problem at all. And
it's a it's a waxy material that literally covers your leaves.
Then yeah, and then the other thing, that's what we
do here is when we have orchids and you just

(03:47):
really don't want to give them that last touch, I
usually put them, especially if they're in a pot, under
an existing tree, like an eucalyptus, because that covers it
from frost as well.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Did you realize that, Yeah, right, that's good.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
No, but there you are. So if you put it
under a tree or a shrub that can actually have
the leaves over the top of your sensitive little tree,
you can actually stop it from freezing there as well. Yeah,
there you go.

Speaker 4 (04:14):
Yeah, I used to. I used to do that terrible
make a terrible mistake because we lived on Hunsbury Hill, right,
so we were above Sea christ which is good different
than most of most of the city. And I think
we're about one hundred and thirty meters up or something,
you know.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
And I used to.

Speaker 4 (04:28):
Look out the window and go, oh, it looks like
a nice day, and I'd step outside and they go,
it's not too bad. And I'd start riding my bike
down the hill, and as I rode down the hill,
I could feel the temperature change. Right, So as you
as you, as you get further from the sun and
you get slightly close to the sea level, slightly closer
to the frost, it would just get colder and colder
and colder. And about halfway down the hill, I would think,

(04:48):
oh my god, I'm not sure if my hands are
going to be able to pull the brakes like I'm
so all of a sudden. So my advice for dealing
with the frost is always we gloves, yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Or go and buy by someone on top of the
hill exactly you see me, Kennedy sports. Cold air is
heavier then warm air, and it goes downhill, which is
why you keep your warm air on the top.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Too, right beg you, rud. We'll put all the rhad's
advice up on the News Talks IDB website.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to News Talks I'd be from nine am Saturday, or
follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.