When a weather warning is issued, many of us promptly take steps to protect our loved ones, houses, and assets, but scarcely a handful remember to make similar preparations to protect their garden. If you are unaware of how to protect your plants from severe weather, you are in the right place. Gharpedia answers all your queries about how to protect your plants from extreme weather. Learn ways to protect plants from thunderstorms and heavy rain, how to protect your garden from storms, and how to protect plants from thunderstorms.
The howling wind is the death knell of your landscape, and so are torrential rains, heat waves, thunderstorms, and hail.
For those who have tended their gardens with motherly care, the havoc unleashed by nature’s fury on their plants is a grave concern. On the other hand, the brown-thumbed souls may find it a bit callous to worry about a wrecked garden while people are living sans electricity and other basic supplies.
But a point to remember here is that there is a growing segment of the community that pours hearts, souls, energy, labour, and time into crafting the ideal garden space. These gardens provide an escape from the stress of daily life, where they can relax and forget for a little while about the world beyond the garden fence.
Before we move towards the preventive measures, let’s first try to understand what ‘weather damage’ entails.
Understanding How To Identify Weather Damage
The main symptoms to look out for when inspecting your plants for the adverse impact of spells of extreme weather or single events such as storms or heat waves are:
- Brown Leaves: This occurs after large storms with heavy, protracted rainfall as it leads to the soil around the roots becoming waterlogged, which in turn causes buried roots to rot
- Dieback: This is the wilting of shoots or the browning of entire plants due to the waterlogged soil, which is an organic follow-on of a storm or dry soil following a drought
- Physical Damage: Striking and easy to spot, this damage includes snapped branches and uprooted trees, which are a natural aftermath of storms
- Scorched Leaves: Post-heat waves scorched leaves or smaller scorch marks, which prove that the plant is using water faster than it is replenished
They say, “Prevention is better than cure.” Taking precautions in advance is the best way to ensure the health and longevity of your dear plants. However, if you miss that then it is not too late, as soon as bad weather is forecasted get all hands-on deck and take necessary measures to protect your plants from severe weather. And yes, you must take certain steps after a storm!
So, here’s a presentation of some cues to help you understand how to protect your plants from severe weather.
Tips To Protect Your Plants Prior To Severe Weather
01. Tidy Up
If you are not sure how to protect plants from storms, then do this simple thing. After a thunderstorm alert, take a walk around your garden. Gather any loose items, such as garden tools, toys, furniture, and fallen branches, as a strong wind can blow debris around quite violently, leading to damage to walls, windows, and even human beings!
02. Pruning Is The Way To Go!
Well, all gardeners are aware of the universal truth that a properly pruned tree is a healthy tree. Especially when it comes to a storm – a tree sans dead and diseased branches will be better equipped to withstand the onslaught of the weather better. We don’t want dead parts of an unkept tree transforming into airborne projectiles and damaging property and lives during a hurricane or tornado, do we? Pruning is not only essential for trees but also one of the essential shrub care tips for your home garden.
03. Transfer Potted Plants To An Indoor Space
Storms and rain can irrevocably devastate potted plants. One of the best tips to protect your plants prior to severe weather is to swiftly move them to a screened porch or patio, the garage, or a storage shed. In the event of the non-availability of these spaces, place the potted plants under a ledge or safely tuck them in a corner to offer them some degree of protection.
04. Cover Them
Strong winds can damage fragile stems and blossoms, so one of the best ways to protect plants from severe weather is to cover the plants. Wondering how to do this? It’s easy; just go ahead and cap individual plants with laundry baskets, overturned buckets, and big bowls. But hey, do remember to weigh down these caps with bricks or blocks, or else the high wind may simply topple them off!
05. Go Ahead And Keep Them Wrapped Up And Secure!
If you don’t know how to protect plants from thunderstorms, the simple answer is to wrap them. For those of us who have huge plants that are too big for this, there’s a sure-shot solution. Wrap them with burlap and secure them with twine or string so that you can protect their tender foliage before the storm descends. Go a step further and insert a tall stake close by the base of the plant, and fasten the wrapped plant to the stake.
06. The Taller They Are The More Support They Need!
Tall-growing veggies and flowers like tomatoes, okra, and many more need extra support, like trellises, tomato cages, garden obelisks, etc to enable them to weather a windy storm. These serve a dual purpose, as they not only provide a measure of protection in case of a storm, but they also alleviate the risk of diseases by increasing air circulation around the plants as they grow.
07. Drainage Is The Most Mandatory Measure
Standing water spells trouble for practically all plants (barring a few like canna or cattail, which can bear up with soggy soil). ‘Wet feet’ in plants result in rotting roots. You can beat this hazard by planting in raised beds or, alternatively, by modifying heavy clay soils with compost to facilitate better draining.
08. Lay Down The Trellises
A high wind storm spells danger for the trellises that are supporting vines, so lay them down as soon as possible! However, this may not be feasible if the base stem is thick and brittle. Lay the vines with supple stems along the ground (along with the trellis) to ensure that they’re protected from the worst ravages of the winds. Post-storm, stand them back up, and brace them in place.
09. Remember To Mulch In Advance
A direct effect of a heavy downpour is washing away of freshly planted flowers and veggies. One of the best ways to protect plants from thunderstorms and heavy rain is to add two to three inches of mulch around the base of a plant to stabilise the soft soil. But do remember to mulch a few inches away from the plant’s foliage, or else you may end up inviting disease. According to Ranjan, et.al. (published in Organic Mulching: A Water Saving Technique to Increase the Production of Fruits and Vegetables), mulching restricts the rainwater flow rate and thus curbs the soil and water run-off.
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10. Plant A Windscreen
This one’s not an overnight fix but it’s a long-term and permanent solution if you stay in a region frequented with storms and heavy winds. Windbreaks are one of the longstanding and most reliable methods of protecting plants from the high wind storms that are a part-and-parcel of the weather out here. While thick, tall-growing trees, such as emerald arborvitae or Spartan juniper, grow around one to two feet per year and eventually form a protective windbreak, one can create a temporary wall with two courses of straw bales, weighed down with bricks or stones, as an immediate windbreak to offer some protection to our plants.”
Post Storm Precaution
Abstain From Walking on The Grass
After a storm, don’t run out impatiently onto your lawn to check on the well-being of your dear plants. Wait for the weather to improve before either walking or working on your lawn, especially if there has been a downpour. The reason for this is that a lawn is vulnerable to damage at this particular point when its waterlogged soil cannot support additional weight. So, unless you want to leave depressions or deep furrows in the ground, don’t either walk or move a wheelbarrow across wet grass.
Did You Know?
Thunderstorms, or lightning, are good for plants. Although nitrogen is present in the atmosphere, it is challenging for plants to absorb this nitrogen from the air. What lightning and rain do is put this nitrogen into the soil, where plants can absorb it easily. Now you know why lawns, gardens, and landscapes look lush green after a thunderstorm.
A few steps will go a long way in ensuring that your plants, be they flowers, veggies, or fruits, remain as less impacted by the vagaries of unpredictable weather as possible. Now, you must have understood how to protect your plants from severe weather by following a few steps and taking some precautions as soon as you learned about bad weather.
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Author Bio
Huta Raval – An English Literature and Journalism Topper, Huta Raval has graduated from the L D Arts College, Ahmedabad. Post serving for 23 years in the NBFC and Public Library Sectors her desire for ‘writing the unwritten’ brought her to the creative field of content writing. Her clientele comprises of NGOs, Blogging Platforms, Newspapers, Academic Institutions, et al.
