How to protect your plants from pernicious wind effects

When I was younger (so much younger than today), I learned how to ride a motorcycle. Whilst discussing the effects of weather on road conditions, my instructor said, “the most dangerous effect comes from a type of weather you can’t see. What is it?”

I confidently replied “ice”, to be rapidly informed that I was wrong; although black ice is invisible, you can tell it might be an issue from the fact that it’s freezing out, something you can’t possibly miss. The correct answer was wind, because although you can generally see when it’s windy, gusts can come out of nowhere that are strong enough to send the bike flying.

“There’s no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing,” or so the saying goes – and it’s as relevant to gardeners as to anyone else who ventures into the great outdoors. The only requirement in windy weather is to wrap up nice and warm. Whilst it is possible to be killed by falling tree branches in windy conditions, which is why some large gardens now close during high winds, the smaller trees found in most back gardens are unlikely to pose much of a threat.

From a personal perspective, it seems like you’re more likely to be hit by a flying plastic greenhouse. These are the lengths we had to go to, to stop my cold frame flying around last spring:

This year I used one that fitted into a raised bed, and had long ground anchors, but we still had to weigh down the plastic cover with bricks to stop it flapping around. Our neighbour’s garden is angled to the prevailing wind in such a way that their fence has had to be replaced twice in 8 years. They’ve upgraded it to one with concrete posts.

As humans we can get dressed up, prune our trees and weigh down any problematic objects, and when it’s very windy we