How I Protect Small Palms🌴 And more Tender Plants in The Ground for Winter UK

How I Protect Small palms and more tender plants in the ground for winter

In today’s video we take a look at my first stages of winter protection for more tender plants in the ground as well small palm trees and tree ferns in my UK tropical garden in Leicestershire uk.

I have started my winter protection for this year by adding small structures around my tender plants planted in the ground to keep the moisture and the worst of the winter weather off of the plants. Most plants can take the cold but not the moisture and cold. In the uk we typically have quite wet winters and if I can keep the ground as dry as possible before the cold temps it should help my small palms and other exotic plants happier during the winter and prevent rot. I’ve used straw in the crowns of my tree ferns to help protect them for the winter

All right, guys. Welcome back to the channel and to the garden. In today’s video, I’m just going to show you the start of my winter protection. Uh, and I guess whether you should start any protection for yourself as well. You can just see here a bit of a windier day. Um, it is starting to kind of get a nip in the air, cooling down. Finding my lowest nighttime temperature recently went down to 1.4° C. Um, so just under the kind of uh 40° Fahrenheit sort of mark. Um, and again, we’re kind of creeping down on the nighttime temperatures. No signs of sort of any frost or hard frost yet. We did get a very light frost uh on the previous night where we had the 1.4C, but um it’s kind of jumped me into gear really. What I’m starting to do now is my first initial um sort of overhead structures. You can just see here this is covering the uh Waggy Princ. If I just get down underneath that. Now, I did have this sort of protection uh last year over the Waggy. And while it’s small, um you know, I do kind of like to give it a little bit of protection. And what I’m doing basically is um you know cutting down the moisture for the actual uh plant. Uh a lot of these plants can take cold, but it’s the cold and moisture combination that unfortunately can kill them off. And with it being a younger plant, uh again, you know, that’s something I want to give it that little head start. Of course, when it gets a little bit larger, it’s trunking and it’s been in the ground for some years, you know, it should be fine and hardy, you know, down to around about the minus 8 – 10 without much of an issue. Um, or any sort of protection. But for now, just to give it that little help. And I know these uh structures look uh very makeshift. Just use a lot of just scrap that I’ve got in the garden here just to kind of get that process started. Now, I may of course go back and um kind of rebuild these as the year goes on, but really just kind of starting out that drying out. As you can see, dirt-wise, it is very moist. Hasn’t really um kind of dried out in the past few weeks now. We’ve still got quite a bit of rain uh coming in. You can just see the um oh goodness, forgot the name of this one here. Uh one of the roses here, uh the regusa rose again, kind of going back into its kind of autumn stages. Um but underneath here, you can see we’ve got covering on the prince. This is the tracky carpass hybrid. Grown quite a bit this year actually. Um, so quite impressed with that. Just behind that there, you can see I’ve got my little outdoor temperature sensor to give me sort of a more accurate um, temperature reading for the garden. Picked it up at B&M. Only 15 quid, so really can’t complain on that. And it works pretty well just to give me a uh, accurate a more accurate temperature for the garden there. But as you can see, another one of the structures here. Again, very makeshift as you can tell, but really just to kind of uh, you know, do the purpose of keeping these uh, dry for the winter. You can see if we just come back this way. show you a couple of the other plants I’ve covered. Now, I haven’t really got much to cover and and protect in the garden here. Um, you know, I’ve taken in my alicasia uh zabrina, but um other than that and a couple of the ferns, everything’s pretty much staying out. Um, you can see I’ve put just the temporary cover over the scass revolut here. Uh, getting down, you can see I’ve left a nice air gap. problem is if you just sat this on um the ground for more than say a night, you can get moisture buildup inside. Uh which again is what we’re trying to avoid here. Um really kind of cheap way to do it. Four stakes in the ground and sort of a plastic tub. You know, this is a very inexpensive way if you’re looking to add some protection for plants. I know the protection doesn’t look the greatest. And again, um, you know, if you’re really interested in in building structures that look a little bit more aesthetically pleasing, um, certainly check out, uh, Joseé Ramos, uh, in the friends of the comments, as well as, uh, New York Tropical. He also has a very cool structures they build each year. And again, if you’re looking to protect something um, a little less hardy, great ways to um, you know, get things through. Just see here again, little bit undercover. Very overgrown in there at the moment. But again, it’s just that little bit of uh moisture that we’re trying to keep out. Uh musabaste. Haven’t really done anything other than trim up the lower leaves about a few weeks ago now just to let those heal. I will be wrapping these. Um we’ll show you the method when we actually do come to it. But uh again, there’s quite a bit of content out at the moment regarding sort of bananas and the different ones. Uh Eddie over at Woolly Tropicals has put out a different method than I typically use. So if you want to check that out, uh certainly check that out. Videos just come out on his channel as well. You can see onset uh not done much again. And I’m almost toying with the idea of trying to get this one through in the ground. I know it’s uh you know, not very common you can, but with the size of this trunk now, um you know, this pseudo stem here has got to be sort of 60 65 in diameter. Um sorry, 65 incumbrance. uh probably on the order of about two foot diameter now. So I mean really kind of quite a big plant. Um you know if we had a quite a mild winter I believe I could get this flu through with a sort of uh bamboo cage straw things like that the way I would normally typically protect the muscue. Um but again still toying with that. At the moment I don’t have any hard frosts in my forecast. So I’m going to kind of again just kind of go from there until that happens. As we come down here, show you one of the last ones we’ve added some cover on. You can see unfortunately all the leaves coming down off the trees has really kind of covered the pond. Having to go out with the pool net there. You can see just down there and uh try and scoop out as much as I can. Um still looking very lush and green in this area as you can see. Uh just taking a look. We step back again. Tree ferns all looking very happy. Protection wise, I’ve added straw into the crowns. Now, uh you can do this with like straw, dry leaves, things like that. I mean, if you do have eucalyptus leaves, that would be the most ideal as that’s what kind of leaves they would have uh in nature uh typically where they’re from. Again, the leaves will break down and provide nutrients for the plant. Now, even though we have straw in now and no predicted sort of low forecasts, if we do have a frost on the sort of in the forecast, what I will do is just before I’ll go through, remove any damp straw, and replace that with dry straw uh just before that frost. And once again, repeat the process uh throughout the winter just to keep that um well basically as sort of dry on top. We’re not want we don’t want the crown to freeze is basically the idea we’re trying to get out here. Um but with that said, you can see kind of nature’s done its thing here and the way that these are shaped and kind of funnel down in. Got lots of the natural leaves you can see just there covering it exactly how nature would sort of do it there. Um, just as we come down the jungle path, you can see it’s getting really overgrown now down here, which is what we want. Just as we come this way, you can see I’ve added this little temporary cover over the Phoenix Robelini. Now, this one is on a hinge, so I can actually lift and put this down if I want to. Again, if we’re getting a nice sunny day, something like that, I can always just put that down temporarily, let that get some direct sun as well as a bit of moisture if needed. Um, again, just very temporary stuff here. Very easy. just scraps from around the garden that I’ve used for these. Um, next to that, we’ve got some straw. Now, as mentioned, we’ve been putting it in some of the tree fern crowns, but with that said, this will also be used as sort of a mulch uh over things like our collocas and some of the other plants in here. Now, typically sort of in nature, I suppose, you know, all the leaf matter and and things that would fall from the trees is going to create its own natural mulch. And what we’re trying to do is essentially replicate that. Um, you can see this time of year now, of course, you know, any leaves that are falling, I’m kind of sweeping up up into the beds. Uh, any sort of leaf scraps or anything like that, allowing that to kind of make cover. Again, it does help to provide nutrients to the ground as well. Again, just kind of repeating that more natural process. Um, something we want to try and repeat again in our gardens is kind of replicate nature as much as we can. Um, and typically plants will do a lot better and thrive getting a lot of those micronutrients that uh, you know, some of the even fertilizers and things won’t even provide uh, on that side. But just as we come down this way, uh, you can see the only other plants that we’re really going to be taking in this year, uh, only temporarily again if it goes below freezing. It’s going to be the siia down here. Um, again, that came in just for about 12 hours a night. It went down to 1C. um and only as it is a baby plant. Again, these can take minus 3C uh when they are mature, but these will stay potted for me. You can see the Sciia Highland lace just down in here. Still putting out a new frond, which is uh always nice to see if we can get that in there. But just see that kind of woolly kind of miss it’s got on it. Quite a cool little plant there. Um otherwise known as a dwarf woolly tree fern. And one of the other last ones we’ll be taking in. Again, this will be more hardy once it gets more mature, but they do grow very slow. Is going to be our Dixonia fibrosa. Um, so this one’s got more of like kind of a spongy trunk, more of a a smaller tree fern. Again, new purchase this year. Um, this will go in the ground in the spring and we’ll try and protect it in place along with some of our other tree ferns there. Um, and I’ve just remembered we have brought in the mother aeonium plant as well as the peteras evermensis which is one of the uh sort of less hearty ferns. You can just see here as well, this is one of the cutings that we’ll be leaving outside of the aonium. Does seem to do quite well growing wise in the cooler temperatures. Uh the mother plant I actually do keep by the window in the kitchen. Uh does get a bit of a draft, but it does seem to quite like that. It grew quite a bit last uh winter in the window, so it’s quite happy. It does seem to kind of appreciate those cooler temperatures as opposed to kind of the bit more drier kind of warmer air uh typically you’d have in the house. Um, another plant I find once again quite a cool plant. You can just see, you know, how large uh the heads are on these. Um, going to leave these again kind of where they are. Again, these were cutings, grown quite well. Um, if it does kind of go anywhere near the kind of real cold temperatures, we’ll chuck a fleece over this and just see if we can get these through with really light protection this year. Just be interesting to see. Um, they do add a nice kind of little look on our very overgrown sort of seedum seerviv bed here. Um, but yeah, I kind of the purpose of the video really is just to kind of show you what I’m doing at the moment. Give you an idea if you do have any plants that uh may require a bit more kind of drier soil. Some of the more error uh aid plants, um, you know, small temporary overhead structures like those can do a lot to keep them to get through. As mentioned, really kind of, you know, the cold a lot of plants can tolerate, but it’s the cold and wet uh, that can be an issue. It does seem, you know, at the moment we’re getting a lot of rain. um you know and it’s really kind of penetrating the ground, not really drying out. So, if I can give it that little kind of I don’t know, a few weeks before it gets really cold um to kind of dry out that ground, hopefully it provides that little bit extra protection. Uh again, so it’ be interesting to kind of see if you’ve done any other similar structures in your garden. um you know, if you kind of box anything up, if you’re in a colder climate or you’re considering it for any new plants that you’ve gotten this year, certainly put that down in the comments. If uh you’ve got any plants that you’re looking to protect and maybe looking to do something similar. Um but of course with that said, if you haven’t checked out the friends of the channel, certainly feel free to do so. They’ll be in the comment section below. If you haven’t joined our channel, certainly feel free to do so. Again, join our amazing community. Uh quite a few more videos coming out and on the way. uh quite a few new pond builds as well as sort of waterfall builds as well if you do uh have interest in that side of the garden. But yeah, of course, with that said, thanks for watching. We’ll see you in the next one.