A Very Useful Method for Protecting Tender Trees from Frost

Protecting trees from frost is a winter pastime in the Deep South.

When the temperatures drop, you’ll see ghostly figures rising from lawns here and there about your neighborhood; which, on closer inspection, reveal themselves to be small trees and shrubs covered in sheets and blankets.

A Southern Lady Gardener worth her salt knows that certain plants aren’t quite able to take the overnight swings down below freezing that happen in between sunny 60 to 70-degree days in January.

One December we had a week that rose into the 80s, followed by a night that dropped down near 20.

That wreaks havoc on any plant that can’t adjust!

Even supposedly cold-hardy plants, like mulberries, will sometimes freeze to the ground during these swings.

Tomorrow night we have a 15-degree night forecasted, so we’re using one of our favorite tricks to protect trees on frosty nights:

Those Satsuma trees should sail right through the overnight lows without damage.

If you have extended periods of freezing weather, this frost protection trick might now cut it. However, we rarely fall below 32 degrees for more than a day at a time, and that isn’t enough cold to freeze a barrel of water.

All that water acts like a battery, holding warmth and slowly releasing it overnight.

It’s significantly more effective than simply covering a tree, and it’s less work and effort than stringing Christmas lights around your trees. (If that even works now that we’ve been plunged into a LED dystopia where you can’t get honest incandescent bulbs anymore!)

It’s especially useful if you have lots of trees to protect. Once you have the barrels, you can use them for years. Just tuck one up next to a tree, fill it with water, then cover the tree and the barrel together with a sheet or a blanket.

We usually use 55-gallon drums, but this time we only have 30-gallon barrels to use since all the big barrels are keeping our greenhouse warm!

The weather has been swinging all over the place. Some sites say to expect 15 degrees on Tuesday, but Weather.com currently has the expected low at 17:

That’s still too cold for little trees, even the cold-hardy Satsumas we have.

The barrels make a great difference! Last winter, temperatures fell to 16 degrees overnight one night, and 18 the next, with the weather never rising above freezing for over two days. My little Satsumas and lemon tree didn’t suffer any damage, except for a few leaves that snuck out of the blanket covering one of the trees. Yet other people lost trees they had covered with just sheets.

Try the barrel method of protecting trees – you’ll be impressed!