Tips to protect your plants from the cold

When prolonged cold threatens your plants, you'll have these tips to keep them safe.

If you have seedlings in heavy planters that you're unable to bring indoors, here's how to protect them.

1. Straighten out two coat hangers, then bend the wire into arcs.
2. Cross them and insert the ends into the planter, just inside the rim, leaving headroom for the seedlings.
3. Cover this wire frame with a plastic dry cleaning bag, securing the plastic to the planter by wrapping it with loosely tied twine. (Temporarily remove the plastic whenever the seedlings need watering.)

When the weather forecaster predicts a frosty night, tent thin sections of newspaper over your seedlings, weighing them down at the edges with stones. The newspapers will keep your plants nicely insulated from the cold until the temperature rises again the next day.

If you're keeping seedlings or hardening off young plants in a cold frame and a hard frost is forecast, line the inside of the frame with sheets of newspaper. Newsprint is a first-rate insulator.

If you're going to be having an unseasonably cold night, get outdoors as early as possible and flank your vegetable plants with something that will absorb the heat of the sun all day and radiate it at night. You could use large, flat stones or terra cotta tiles. Another solution is to bend wire coat hangers into wickets, secure them over the plants and drape them with black plastic trash bags for the night.

In cold climates, old-fashioned bushel baskets make excellent plant protectors, keeping cold winds out while letting in some light. At night, drape the baskets with black plastic for extra protection.

The French came up with the idea for the glass cloche, or bell jar, to protect seedlings from frost. Cloches line the shelves at garden centres, but a household substitute will do the job just as well. Some ideas for impromptu plant protectors:

• A tall flower vase, placed upside down over the plant
• A large glass fruit jar
• A two-litre soda bottle. Just slice the bottom off with a sharp knife and place the bottle over the seedling.
• A large plastic water jug, used in the same way as the soda bottle

If frost threatens to damage a large container plant on your patio, or perhaps a citrus tree that's bearing young fruit, string incandescent Christmas lights through the branches. Cover the plant with a sheet or drop cloth and turn on the lights. Your plant will stay warm through the night.

When you're starting vegetables indoors near a normally sunny south-facing window, but the early spring sun won't cooperate, maximize the rays with aluminum foil–lined sun boxes.

Cut out one side of a cardboard box and line the three inner walls with foil. When you face the boxes toward the outside, sunlight will reflect back on your vegetable seedlings. Plants will not only catch more sun, but their stems will grow straight rather than bending toward the light.

Share the warmth with these handy tips to keep your seedlings and plants protected from cold weather and your garden will grow hardly and hale.