Mini cloches, etc - need some advice

In order to protect some young plants when frosts threaten I was thinking of buying some kind of mini cloche, ie one fully enclosed cloche per plant (the plants are very small, there's only six of them).

Or perhaps a very short tunnel.

Either way, something that can be very easily placed/removed as required.

Any recommendations please?

Or maybe there's a cheaper way to make something suitable?

Thanks.

 

I'm not convinced that small cloches covered with thin polythene would be effective against frosts, at least not the ones I get at my outside of village, rural frost pocket plot.

I prefer to make bamboo cane structures like a mini versions of what people use to grow runners beans up, and throw jumble sale net curtains/sheets/curtains/bed spreads over when frost is forecast, mind you they're a sod to get dry if it rains on them, I've got about 10 bin bags of them.

I've got 2 usb temperature data loggers and used them to find the overnight advantage of a small polytunnel is very small, so a thin plastic cloche would be even less effective. I've got some Wilkos plastic cloches I got for 1p each last year and could put one up when temperstures drop and do a comparison between outside and inside.

 

Interesting, thanks.

I had always thought that the idea of covering plants wasn't to prevent them from (partly) freezing but to help stop frost from forming on them, so wouldn't covering them with a plastic cloches achieve that?

 

Plants still die/get set back weeks on end from the cold inside polytunnels when it frosts, the smaller the tunnel, the colder it gets, cloches are about as small as you can get.

What sort of plants are you thinking of?

 

Just a few well rooted cuttings of Hydrangea and Buddleia.

I know that the Buddleia should be okay but I'm erring on the side of caution and want to help them through their first winter if I can.