Protecting Plants in Winter

Okay, I admit it that I'm not the greatest for remembering to protect my plants outside before a severe frost comes.  It always creeps up on me, and before I know it some of my favorite plants are crispy critters.  Some plants that I want to protect from winter I just keep in pots so they can come indoors during severe weather. This works for me, but this idea is not always handy for other people.  Our neighbors diligently cover their bushes that are vulnerable to frost, wrapping them carefully with burlap, and then tying them with cording so they can weather the winter.  Then the minute spring comes around, they unwrap the plants, and just in time for the leaves to sprout.  I have always marveled at their timing.

My poinsettias are always placed into a larger pot, and left in it all summer, and whenever colder weather comes, so then they all come into a protected area, and eventually the house.  They do well with this plan.  One of my poinsettias is now in its fourth season here, and surviving because of the portability.

There is a lemon bush in our backyard that is planted next to and a little against a block wall. I have never wrapped it, nor done a thing to protect it from frost.  It must like it there because it has been there for years, and it is growing quite well.  At our last house, we had an avocado tree that was in a niche between the house and the patio cover. It liked it well enough there in spite of our freezing winters, and even produced the fruit.  It was still there, producing wonderful avacados the year we moved from that house to the present one.  Sometimes we luck out in the placement of vulnerable trees and plants, and sometimes we don't.  Covering plants with plastic covers is quite a gamble, because as soon as the sun comes out, the plant will burn up.  One must be extremely careful when covering any plant.  The plant still needs some air.  Burlap is the best material for this.