What is needed, and what is necassary, to protect plants from the first frosts?

~Hi Jonathan
~I use fleece to swathe around some of my plants on frosty nights but I buy the heaviest GSM weight possible~ you need minimum 30(ebay? and if you buy it by the metre that is the best way.
The bags you can buy are not nearly heavy enough!
Arlene

I saw those fleece bags yesterday they come in different thicknesses and some have draw string ties to help anchor them. Dont know if they would work for you Jonathan but seemed quite expensive if you need a lot. I take lots of cuttings and then hope for the best in the garden, loose very little. Begonias I wouldnt expect to survive though.

Hi jonathan, my pots are quite big but thinking back over the years I've seen crocus and early daffodils covered in snow. One pot in another and the gap filled with either the bubble or newspaper or even straw would help to insulate them, they say clustering pots together may also help
wonder what sort of winter we'll have?

Hi jonathan...I just plant my bulbs and set the pots against the house wall...i only put a bit of protection over them when the shoots emerge..Daffs and Tulips dont need protection i find....Most of my plants in the ground are herbaceous, so they get a mulch in autumn.....I have a lot of Dahlias and i only lift the ones i want to take cuttings from...anything tender.....comes into my sun-room and all else stays in my plastic greenhouse with a bit of thick newspaper lining or in my cold frame....I dont use fleece or bubble wrap...Begonias in pots, i allow to dry, then i push them, pot and all under the bench in my shed (must be dry) and start them off the following year:..I do this with things like Chocolate cosmos as well....I also take cutting of favourites....>)

Hi Jonathan we don't protect our pots of bulbs outside at all. Anything that needs special care goes into the bulb house. Bulbs are hardy little beings and can survive nasty weather - getting too wet is worse than getting cold and possibly frozen.

Hi Jonathan, I live near Bracknell too and I never do anything to protect my pots of bulbs. Like Motinot they are just against the house wall.I did lose some mini daffs last year, don't know why though as they.ve come through winter before. I don't think you need your curtain liners, your garden looks quite enclosed and sheltered.

Lily do you also have begonias as Jonathan was asking about portecting them and as you live in the same area

I have begonias this year for the first time Denise so don't know about overwintering them. I was going to treat them the same as any dahlia tubers which I think won't survive. Any I do lift I then wait for them to dry off, wrap in newspaper and store in trays in my unheated shed/greenhouse My begonias are still flowering outside uncovered at the moment Jonathan but they are winding down so I will bring them in very soon. Like you I'm trying to get the most out of them!

Hi everyone. Nice to join you all. Thank you for all your replies. So most of you think no need for my thermal curtain lining material. Oh, goodness! That will be a relief, if I don't need to do that task daily! Mouldy, dripping cloths in my living room after each morning are no joy. Moon-grower ... you are up in far Scotland I believe. So if your bulbs can survive uncovered, then I should think anyones can. In fact, I don't worry at all if there is a covering of snow, because I understand snow acts like an insulating layer, a blanket which prevents frost being able to penetrate. Only Arlene feels there is a need for heavy covering. I did actually once cast old, unwanted compost out onto the lawn, which contained some bulbs. Many of them came through the winter, even though buried just a inch deep on the turf. It was quite amusing to see tulips and other funny things come popping up the following spring.

Hi Jonathan :)
I don't cover my pots of bulbs either. The worst that happens is that the pots may crack after freezing, and then thawing. So if you've got any posh pots that are worth saving, then you could wrap the pot in bubble wrap....but don't worry about the bulbs, they'll be fine :))

PS. I don't have any "posh pots" by the way...mine are all cheap 'n cheerful, so it doesn't really matter if they crack ;)

Unless the frost occurs after the bulb/corm has started growing it should have no effect. We always cover our pots with a good 2 cm of 10 ml grit and then ignore. In fact Me MB planted a heap of bulbs into pond baskets and then plunged them all into a salmon fish box covered with 20 ml gravel! I admit to concerns that the crocuses will fight their way through but the principle is correct.

Your assurances are much appreciated. This really is very good news for me indeed. Wrestling the heavy sheets over the pots like I have been doing over the past few winters was at times extremely difficult for me from my wheelchair. Thank you so much all of you for telling me this. It seems I'd worried about them and mollycoddled (how spelt?) them just a fraction too much unnecessarily. By the way, I learned a few days ago that I've been granted an award for the 'Best Newcomer' in this years 'Your Gardens' Bracknell In Bloom Competition. I was delighted. They have sent me a certificate, a gardening gift voucher, and a very nice plaque. It make it all the more wortwhile.

That's brilliant Jonathan. Well done, it's well deserved as your garden is beautiful. Bracknell Council put a lot of effort into their floral displays and their standards are high, so doubly well done

Many thanks Lily2.

Congrats. Jonathan!

Well done on your award Jonathan...Well deserved and you must feel very proud.
Bulbs are clever little things...if the weather is going to be bad they keep their heads under the compost and stop growing. Even if the tips of bulbs get "frosted", they will recover. Look forward to seeing pics of all those bulbs when they are in bloom...:))

Thank you all.

congratulations to you Jonathan....well done...:>)

hang on a cotten picking momentJonathan' I was allways tought that frost flowes like water across the garden and it only dose damage if it is traped, you should allways take cair in planing your garden that any frost can escape , like air bricks or bricks missing low on the walls ,and equlivent in other structers, pots burst and bricks crack because they are wet and as water frezes it expands,so with all the defences that garden center's dream up could you not be traping the frost and there by causeing the damage yourself? come on chaps there is a lot of meet on this bone yet!! PS congrats lad

Ah, so allow air to circulate around pots. Keep it flowing, not trapping.

Yup Cliffo is right...

and don't have the compost to wet in the pots,if you do not want the pots blown apart, thank's MG I thort you would understand you have more experance of frost than we do,

Cliffo the challenge is to have the air moving freely though the garden, thus not creating frost pockets, and not having a tundra like garden - lol We have an area of the garden which, in winter, never receives any direct sun, last winter the ground was frozen for a month but all the plants survived (thankfully). It is a question of knowing what to row where - which you will know without thinking Cliffo.

the more I read your coments MG the more I am convinced that you are a searious and knolageable gardner.whoes adice is realy worth concidering, just in case other gardners think that I am puting them down ,I am very imprest with this site by the number of realy good gardners that help people with there problems ,and I only include my self as one of them that have been helped.

Thank you for your kind words Cliffo