Burying your plants in mulch before a freeze

phoenixtropicals

I would like to share an interesting lesson I learned this last freeze. I have a bunch of mulch in my yard that I had a landscaping company dump for me last summer. Before the 4 days of freezing temps, I bent two small guava trees to the ground by putting rocks on them and buried them under a foot of mulch. They stayed that way for all 4 days, and the temps for at least two nights were down to 27°F for several hours. Guess what! No damage at all.

mariolo · Joined: 06 Feb 2012 Posts: 116

Thats an easy method to use. Thanks for the tip Laughing

Bkaus · Joined: 31 Jul 2012 Posts: 136 Location: North Phoenix

I will need to remember this one Smile

Amadioranch · Joined: 07 Jan 2012 Posts: 88

We did the same in our high tunnel with tomatoes and peppers. Burried them under leaf mulch and they survived lows in the teens for a week. Solid method.

myamberdog · Posted: Sun Mar 03, 2013 12:00 pm Post subject:

hmmmm....very interesting - had heard that being done. Guess you need lots of mulch and a "bendable" plant....

myamberdog

phoenixtropicals · Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 7:58 am Post subject:

Correct. Seems to work best when the plant can be "plastered" down to the ground. I also did this with plants I couldn't bend over and it doesn't seem to work as well when your pile starts to get taller and more cone like.

I have also found that squishing a plant to the ground with an old bed spread works remarkably well too. Take the same bedspread and drape it over the plant with some kind of structure underneath and it helps but doesn't work near as well as the all the way to the ground method.

The pile of mulch method also helps to save the bases of trees. For example, if you have a large guava that can't be bent over. Well, you can at least bury the lower 2 feet in a layer of mulch and it will recover much faster than if it froze all the way to ground level. If you can manage to bury some lower branches with leaves even better. Trimming your cold sensitive trees to make them bushy instead of trying to make shade trees out of them will help with this as well as making them more freeze tolerant in general.