I have a collection of differently sized fleece bags bought on a whim on the internet and they are invaluable! They look after my variously sized tender plants in their own little (or large!) microclimates all winter. The drawstrings keep the bags secure and stop them flying off in the merciless Welsh winds. They’re easy to remove on the less frosty days for a breath of fresh air and to pop back on when it gets chilly. If it snows or is icy, I simply give them a shake and off it comes. I bring them out year after year and I didn’t spend a fortune on them either which is great!
Don’t be too concerned about the echium leaves blackening. Keep them in as sheltered spot as you can and don’t let the compost get soggy. Mine survived two winters outside and bloomed this year.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Another fleece question: is there a downside on keeping fleece on plants outside in the long term (over months, rather than days)? I imagine it cuts down a bit on some of the light that the plants get and maybe reduces the amount of rain. Do people leave fleece on long term?
I use fleece on the crown of my tree fern @Fire, but only when the temperature approaches freezing, then I remove it as soon as the temperature rises to prevent moisture build up and rotting of developing fronds. It means close weather watching but I do that anyway! I don’t normally grow anything which is borderline hardy.
That sounds feasible. I found this in a GW article:
You can make or buy a framework to cover plants, known as a cloche or tunnel, to support sheets of fleece. As long as there's a gap of at least a few centimetres between plants and fleece, the cover can be left in place for weeks or months.
In our old house we had a fuchsia in a pot outside. Every year I used to wrap it up in fleece..ie I wrapped the fleece around the pot and upwards and over the whole plant. I then secured it in place with twine around the pot middle. Every year it survived and grew really well. Unfortunately we couldn’t bring it with us when we moved. I do doubt it would have survived quite as well without the fleece. Fleeced up in late Autumn and taken off in Spring. It didn’t appear to sweat or rot underneath.
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Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
You can make or buy a framework to cover plants, known as a cloche or tunnel, to support sheets of fleece. As long as there's a gap of at least a few centimetres between plants and fleece, the cover can be left in place for weeks or months.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border