How to protect fruit trees from frost

When I woke up yesterday morning, it was misty. We’re approaching the middle of October, which is the usual time for the first frosts of autumn in my part of the UK. People in different areas are already reporting the arrival of the frosts on Twitter. This means it’s time for me to pop out into the garden and bring in my lemon tree (which I grew from a pip, several years ago). It has been enjoying the summer weather in the garden, but it’s only really hardy down to -10°C. I’ve nearly lost it a couple of times, and it has died right back to nothing, but somehow it always manages to come back.

It’s time to think about which fruit trees are truly hardy, and which will need some help.

Lemons are one of the hardiest citrus fruits, and sadly none of them are really hardy in our climate. When you’re talking about frost and fruit trees and bushes, there are really two points at which you need to worry. Now is one of them – the first frosts will kill anything tender, and damage anything not fully hardy. It’s time to bring it indoors, move it into the greenhouse, or wrap it up nice and cosy in horticultural fleece for the winter.

Of course, there are fruits that are tastier after a frost (such as sloes), fruits that are fully hardy (such as sea buckthorn) and fruit trees that need a period of cold to develop properly (apples are one such example). Plants that go dormant in the winter, which includes most top fruit and soft fruit, are generally hardy – dormancy is their way of protecting themselves. For these plants, it’s not the cold that will bother them, but wind rock damaging their roots or problems with waterlogging or even drought (which can be an issue when the ground freezes solid).

What is frost? Frost happens on clear nights