This week no one can escape the cold, but your citrus doesn't have to suffer! To protect your citrus trees from mother nature wrap them in anything from a paper bag to a bed sheet. Pictured here are our orange trees wrapped in burlap. Your goal during the cold temperatures is to retain the plant's heat or to provide it with an outside heat source. Not sold on the tarp look for your front lawn? Make it festive and wrap Christmas lights around the trunk and stems of the plant to warm the leaves at night.There are some other great ways to prevent this from happening next winter as well; try planting your trees close together or up 
against a wall on the south-facing side of your house. Another trick to preventing cold damage is to plant your trees on a higher surface or at the top of a slope because cold winds tend to travel downhill and collect at lower points.
against a wall on the south-facing side of your house. Another trick to preventing cold damage is to plant your trees on a higher surface or at the top of a slope because cold winds tend to travel downhill and collect at lower points. 
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1 comment:
Regarding your statement, "...wrap them in anything from a paper bag to a bed sheet." Is there new research to indicate that it is OK to wrap a citrus tree in plastic during a predicted frost? The UC/ANR Publication,"Frost Protection for Citrus and Other Subtropicals" states on p. 3: "...plastic alone provides very little frost protection."
UC's Pam Geisel states: "You can also use old cotton sheets or clear plastic, but the covering must not touch the foliage. Open the covers during the day and cover before sunset to retain as much heat as possible under the cover." (http://news.ucanr.org/mediakits/freeze/garden.shtml)
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