Frost Protection

It's 2004, and it's been Spring for two days now. We're due for a hard freeze. There's no way to cover or bring in everything that will get nipped, but as a great man once said, "The fact that we can't do everything is no excuse to do nothing."

We'll run a sprinkler on the plum tree and the misting hose on the day lily and iris bed down the driveway, but the ones we worry most about are the hostas. They're just now coming up; some have started unrolling their leaves, most are just spears.

Last year's late freeze left them frizzle-looking for weeks; some of them never did entirely straighten out. So we'll try harder this time.

We thought to cover them with compost/mulch then brush it off when the danger has passed but the ones with leaves open would be filled with mulch, no way to get it out without tearing them up. If we covered them with plastic the tender leaves could be crushed.

So William made a dozen tee-pee frames out of metal rods.

We put those over the clumps that were farthest along.

The ones that were still just spears got a sheet of plastic, or a grocery bag.

We think the rabbit's jealous.

When it's all done we can hope for the best.