Protecting your Spring Garden from Unexpected Snow and frost
Another late-season cold snap? When warmer weather is followed by a cool-down, early-growing bulbs can freeze. It's essential you take immediate steps to protect your spring flowers and garden from more frost, snow and icy winds.
Cover your spring flowering plants (and those that flower late in the year and are yet to emerge) with a 2-4 inch layer of mulch. This will keep them safe from a post season blast of cold winds, frost, rain and snow. Unusual temperature drops require you to minimize the loss of heat from your spring garden in order to keep the plants from severe injury. This can be accomplished by covering the plants with materials such as lightweight blankets, newspapers, burlap or floating row covers. You can erect a frame to make a tent on which to lay the cover or simply cover up the plants individually.
Staking is another good option. Insert stakes into the ground above your tallest standing plants and use these to cover the plants with some lightweight fabric. Just make sure not to use plastic sheets as they tend to trap the moisture, increasing the probability of injury. Cloche-covers and hoop houses are also good for shielding your plants from rain, snow and frost.
Timing, as always, is the key. You must get the covers on before your plants have lost all the heat they gathered during the day. So get to work early in the evening and make sure you're up with the sun to remove the protection unless it's threatening to rain or snow heavily. Floating row covers can be left on night and day until the threat of unseasonal cold has passed.