Protect one Morning Glory on 6' trellis from short frost?

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rick7 West Newton, MA Oct 13, 2015

Here in southern New England next Sunday morning (5 days away) and Monday morning we're scheduled for a frost -- both mornings around 6 am it's supposed to hit right around 32°. After these two frosty mornings the weather looks like it'll be much warmer. I planted my Morning Glory plant late in the season and though it now has many buds it needs probably another week before it blooms. I'm worried a frost could kill it before it does. It's sprawled all over a single 6' trellis so it's contained in that delimited space but it's clearly too tall for normal plant covers. Any advice on how I can protect it? I've been browsing on the web and have some ideas but wonder if anyone here has had experience specifically with Morning Glories.

This message was edited Oct 13, 2015 8:57 AM

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taters55 (Linda Kay) Amarill, TX(Zone 7a) Oct 13, 2015

Maybe you could try placing old sheets over them?

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1lisac Liberty Hill, TX(Zone 8a) Oct 13, 2015

Sleeping bags, blankets, old table clothes. Many of these things can be found at Goodwill or other Secondhand stores for very cheap.

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helenahkh Gautier, MS Oct 14, 2015

I keep my plants from freezing in my greenhouse with heat lamps. If you can hook one up where your vines are it might work. I would cover them also with a blanket.

I plan on protecting a special tropical bush this winter by enclosing it with wire fence then filling it with leaves well packed, then wrapping a tarp around it. I did that with my "erythrina bidwillii" so by spring it would be sprouting when I uncovered it. I no longer have to do that as the trunk has grown into a nice treelike.

Do let us know how you did from your research.

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rick7 West Newton, MA Oct 18, 2015

Hi, thanks for the suggestions. My MG is amazing -- our first frost was scheduled for this morning (Sunday), and on Friday morning it put out its VERY FIRST flowers. Beautiful large sky-blue. And it made it through this morning's 32-degree light frost. I created a kind of "tent" for it by draping long pieces of garden fabric (polypropylene floating row cover) over four 7-foot wooden stakes pounded in to the ground about a foot outside the trellis. Now my job is to get the plant past tomorrow morning's 27-degree freeze. The rest of the week looks warm.

I've read suggestions to put milk jugs of warm water out there under row covers. But is there any reason to not put open pails of, say, hot water? Seems the humidity would be good to keep the air temperature high under the cover. I thought of maybe sneaking out there around 10 pm with the pails of hot water, opening the flaps to the tent and placing the pails in there, and hoping that there's still some warmth left from that by 6 am or so (I know -- not likely, but I can dream...)

This message was edited Oct 18, 2015 11:08 PM

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