They will recover as they sit in the sun for a while.

I apply a 4" hay mulch at planting in November and the garlic grows right through it. Leaves have a tendency to mat unless chopped very fine. Chopped leaves mixed with grass clippings will be more porous.

TomNJ

Mulching garlics do not make sense to me.
In zone 5, for example, when frost line is 12" deep, mulch is not going to do anything as far as protecting from cold.
Garlics are like tulips, daffodiles, .. they are immune from freezing.

University Of Minnesota extension agency recommends Winter Mulch. Not to keep the garlic from freezing, but to keep it from freeze thaw cycles. This can happen daily in the right conditions in this area.

Curt :-)

as curt said its not to kepp them from freezing but to keep them frozen otherwise they will start to grow then get zapped with below zero weather happened to me last year same with tulips ect

For some of us the mulch is to conserve winter moisture, not because of freezing or thawing. When I put in the garlic, I water, then put on about 4 inches of pine straw. This winter has been unusually wet, with snow cover on the garlic beds from November through part of February. The snow cover has been gone for almost a month now, and the mulched beds are still nicely damp and the garlic coming up through the mulch.

Catherine