About this product
There is a particular kind of heartbreak reserved for the middle of April. The broad beans are up, the early carrots have their first true leaves, the dahlias have been hardened off and set out because the forecast said mild — and then the sky clears overnight, the temperature drops to minus two, and by breakfast the whole lot has gone translucent and limp.
Nothing prevents a frost. What you can do is put a layer between the frost and the plant, and hold a little of the day's warmth in the soil overnight. A metre-wide roll of horticultural fleece is the cheapest insurance a garden has, and the one most gardeners wish they had unrolled the evening before.
The Garland Horticultural Fleece Roll is 17gsm spun-bonded polypropylene, one metre wide and sixteen metres long. From Garland, who have been making growing equipment for British gardeners and allotment holders for decades and whose propagators and seed trays sit on half the potting benches in the country. Supplied to us through our partners at AllotMate, who curate proper, well-made tools for gardeners and allotmenteers who'd rather buy once.
What makes it work
- 17gsm weight — light enough to lay straight onto growing plants without flattening them, heavy enough to hold a couple of degrees of warmth against a clear night
- Spun-bonded, not woven — the fibres are bonded rather than knitted, so a cut edge does not unravel and you can trim it with ordinary scissors
- Breathable — air moves through it, so plants underneath do not sit in a stagnant, sweating pocket the way they do under solid polythene
- Water-permeable — rain and a watering can both go straight through, which means you can leave it in place for weeks without lifting it to water
- Light transmission — enough daylight reaches the crop that growth continues underneath rather than blanching
- A physical barrier — cabbage white butterflies cannot lay through it, carrot fly cannot reach the row, and pigeons cannot strip a brassica bed they cannot get at
When you'll reach for it
- Late frosts in spring — the classic use. A double layer over early potatoes, beans or tender bedding on a clear night
- Getting a head start — laid over a seed bed, fleece warms the soil and raises germination rates on early sowings that would otherwise sulk
- Hardening off — a halfway house between the greenhouse and the open bed, softening wind and temperature swings for a week or two
- Brassicas through summer — a floating cover over cabbage, kale and sprouts keeps cabbage white butterflies off without any spraying at all
- Carrots and alliums — carrot root fly flies low; a fleece cover pegged down at the edges is one of the few reliable defences
- Over cloche hoops — draped across wire or plastic hoops it becomes a light tunnel, giving you the height for taller crops
- Wrapping individual plants — a tree fern crown, a young olive, a standard bay in a pot through the worst of the winter
- Wind protection — often overlooked. Cold drying wind kills more young transplants than frost does
Specifications
- Material: spun-bonded polypropylene
- Weight: 17gsm
- Width: 1 metre
- Length: 16 metres
- Coverage: 16 square metres
- Colour: white
- Cuttable: yes, with ordinary scissors
- Reusable: yes, across several seasons
- Brand: Garland
Holding it down
This is the part everyone learns the hard way. Fleece is very light, and a March gust will take an unsecured sheet across three gardens before you have finished your tea. The simplest method costs nothing: dig a shallow trench along each side of the bed, lay the fleece edge into it, and push the soil back on top. Failing that, weigh the edges with bricks, stones, lengths of timber or half-filled bottles at close intervals — every metre or so, not every three.
Leave slack. A cover pulled drum-tight over a row of seedlings will chafe the growing tips and leave no room for the crop to grow into. Lay it loose and let it billow.
Looking after it
- Lift it on warm days — fleece traps heat, and a run of unexpected sunshine can cook what it was meant to protect. Roll it back and let the bed breathe
- Shake before folding — soil and leaf litter left in the folds will rot and stain
- Dry it completely — the single biggest cause of fleece failing early is being folded away damp and coming out mildewed the following spring
- Roll, don't crumple — creases weaken the bonded fibres over time
- Store it mouse-proof — mice will happily shred a fleece roll for bedding over winter
The honest truth: fleece is a consumable, not an heirloom. Handled with reasonable care a roll will give you several seasons, but it thins with use, and there will come a spring when a piece tears under its own weight as you lift it. That is the point to retire it rather than patch it. Sixteen metres goes a long way in the meantime, and offcuts that are too small for a bed are still useful for wrapping a single pot.
If it is summer pest exclusion you are after rather than warmth, our InsectoNet Plastic-Free Insect Netting is the finer-mesh alternative — it does the butterfly and carrot fly job without adding any heat at all, which matters in July.
About Garland
Garland Products have been manufacturing horticultural equipment in the UK since 1976, working out of Staffordshire and supplying the propagators, seed trays, watering equipment and growing sundries that most British gardeners have used at some point without necessarily noticing the name on them. They are a straightforward, unglamorous sort of maker — the kind whose products end up in every allotment shed because they work and they are affordable.
About AllotMate
AllotMate curate proper, well-made tools and equipment for gardeners and allotmenteers who'd rather buy once than buy often. We work with them through a direct fulfilment arrangement, which means your order ships from their warehouse to your door — same tools, slightly faster delivery, and consistent stock levels because they handle their own inventory.
A small thought: fleece is one of the few things in a garden that works entirely by being in the right place on the right night. Keep the roll somewhere you will see it — by the back door rather than at the back of the shed — because the frost that catches you out is always the one you did not go and look for.