When temperatures take a drastic dip, find out how you can help defend your trees and plants against frost damage.
For warm weather climates, temperatures rarely reach below freezing. However, on the rare occasion that they do dip below 20 degrees (or even lower), frost can cause serious damage to plants and trees that commonly grow in these areas.
What Frost Does To Your Plants
Water is drawn from leaves of the plant when condensed moisture freezes and forms ice. The plant is rapidly dehydrated, resulting in something similar to a burn.
The good news:
These are steps you can take to help your plants stay protected and healthy during these unusually low temperatures.
- As counterintuitive as it may seem, it is more difficult to cool humid air than dry air, so keeping your plants watered during frost or freeze days may help prevent additional frost damage. Water your entire lawn in the evening before the forecasted freeze. This will increase humidity to the area and help minimize the freeze's damage on your plants and trees.
- Whenever you can, cover up your trees and plants with old blankets and towels on the night of a freeze (before dusk is best). Heat stored in your plants is lost as the night gets colder, so when you cover them it can help preserve that warmth and make it harder for ice to form. Remove the covers in the morning so more heat can be absorbed.
- Older style incandescent Christmas lights are a simple but effective way to keep your trees and plants a little warmer on chilly nights, even if only by a few degrees.
Need a little extra help with your outdoors this season? That's what we're here for. We'll tailor a plan to fit you and your yard's needs to keep you loving your landscape.
