I use frost cover or row cover. It breathes and is light. It is fairly cheap. I get it by the foot from my GOOD non big box store. Each foot os 12' wide and cost me about $1. It gives me about 7 degrees of protection. It comes in different weights. I live in 8b and I cover my whole vegetable garden and I grow aloe outside.

I do google the names of my plants and I know there hardiness ratings. Some are fine or will make it through a couple of degrees , or are good to 25 degrees. some are good to 19 , and on. It can be as you prepare for winter that if they are in pots, one can put them close to each other in blocks. I use the heat of my buildings and the southern stone patio to create a micro climate. It is good for about 8 degrees if the freeze is not to extended. We have freezes that last about 3 days. We are in one know. I think it will bottom out at about 26 -27 this time. It could be worse, but here they don't last long.

I also use straw, dead leaves, old sheets, old towels, Old yard mattresses (when desperate and the cold front dives to 12F) Large pots with holes taped and shoved over it with dried leaves and a rock to hold it down in the wind. Anything that will hold warmth. Some people uses bubble wrap and batting like quilters use. Some people build structures by bending light gage thin PBC over and staking them to the ground with rebar and then stretching the frost cover over.

Oh my gosh! Not horrible freezes! Just a light frost that kills nontheless. Normally, we never get frost, but on ocassion, we do get a cold winter and this looks to be one of them. So we might get a total of 3 nights of frost the entire winter. So people run out after dinner and when the weather man tells people to throw "something" over their plants and bring the pets in at night. I don't know anyone who leaves their pets out at night, but apparently some do. If I knew the names of all my plants, I'd look them up! I'm pretty sure of about eight of them.

So we are looking at throwing something over them in the evening and taking it off of them the next morning hopefully before the sun hits.

If it's a calm night, I could put newspaper over them. But if there is any wind, the plants on the windy part of the house would not fare well. They are in a lath house and sit on a table above the ground.

The ones on the patio are close enough to the house to be somewhat protected, at least from the wind, but that area does get hit with frost. They are on cement. So I'm thinking of throwing plastic over them. The morning sun will hit them, so maybe a tarp instead of clear plastic.

So far we are only in the 40's. So I have plenty of time to think about this...so she says.

I used to live on the Highveld, where we got winter frost that usually caused grass to turn yellow, all my plants stayed outside, and I covered them with 'frost cloth', which worked a treat. The plants can breath as wanton said and many people used it to cover the sensitive bushes for the whole winter, I preferred to cover at night and take off in the morning. Used it when we had forecasts of hail as well.

Most of our fost are light and I often don't do anything for most of my plants. We are mostly above freezing most of the time. The frost I just had was 23 but they told us 27 so I did not cover my A. maculata and A. grandidentata. I think they will freeze back to the ground, but they will come back. Irritates me. Because I would have covered them for those extra degrees.I have the cloth I should have gone with my gut feeling and not the weatherman. Beachplant, I cover and uncover all winter long.. Usually it is about 4 times. This was my first and I only blew it on the aloes...bummer. I will do the extra stuff it it is going to be a BAD freeze. I approach things in stages. Sometimes I get into trouble.