Cultivating a thriving garden can be a truly rewarding experience, but it’s often the challenges that come with protecting our precious plants from harsh weather conditions and unwanted pests that can be daunting. Row covers, also known as floating plant covers or garden covers, provide an effective safeguard against damage caused by snow, hail, frost, extreme heat, wind, insects, and pests.
These versatile covers allow essential light, moisture, and air to reach your vegetables, fruit, shrubs, bushes, or citrus trees while keeping them safe from harm. With the right plant food and a row cover in place, you can extend the growing season from late spring to early fall or even into early winter, ensuring your plants remain healthy and strong up until harvest time.
The 8 Best Row Covers
When it comes to protecting your crops from harsh weather conditions and pesky pests, a reliable plant cover is essential. In our search for the best options, we’ve narrowed down the top contenders. Our top pick, Agfabric Floating Row Cover, offers unparalleled protection and durability.
Other notable mentions include SUNPRO Plant Cover, Easy Gardener Plant Protection Blanket, Gardaner Plant Cover, Valibe Plant Cover, Tierra Garden Micromesh Tunnel Garden Cloche, Kasbon Plant Cover, and Dalen Gardeneer Harvest-Guard Floating Garden Cover.
Our Top Pick for the Best Row Cover
When it comes to finding the best row cover for your garden, our top recommendation is the Agfabric Floating Row Cover. This exceptional product provides comprehensive protection for your plants from seedling to harvest, making it an ideal choice for vegetable farms, urban gardens, and suburban plots alike. The lightweight yet robust fabric effectively shields your plants from harsh weather conditions and pesky pests and insects, allowing them to thrive under its protective blanket.
With the Agfabric Floating Row Cover, you can rest assured that your plants will flourish and reward you with a bountiful harvest. Check out the current price on Amazon.
How to Choose the Best Row Cover for Your Garden
Types of Row Covers
Row covers are a versatile and essential tool in gardening, coming in two main types: floating row covers and tunnel row covers, also known as garden cloches. Floating row covers are lightweight and soft, designed to be draped directly over plants or even lawns. They’re ideal for newly planted seeds, seedlings, low-vegetation plants like tomatoes and shrubs, and small to medium-sized citrus trees.
This type of cover is incredibly versatile – you can drape it over a plant bed, secure it to a seedling box with stakes, or wrap it around individual plants using clothing pegs. If you’re new to gardening and unsure how to install one, there are plenty of online resources, including helpful videos that provide step-by-step guidance. Tunnel row covers, on the other hand, are perfect for larger-scale growers, whether commercial, home-based, or urban gardeners.
These covers have metal hoops – full or half-sized – that hold the fabric in place, creating a safe and protective environment for your plants to grow. The only limitation is their suitability for taller plants. Popular examples of tunnel row covers include the Tierra Garden Micromesh Tunnel Garden Cloche, which offers a sturdy and reliable solution for gardeners looking to protect their crops.
Size
When it comes to measuring the size of a row cover, feet and meters are common units of measurement. For small to medium-sized gardens or collections of plants, a 10 by 12-foot cover is often sufficient, providing ample protection for a single plant or a small group of them. On the other hand, larger covers such as the SUNPRO 10 x 30-foott Plant Cover are better suited for sprawling rows of plants on a farm, large sections of your garden, or even your patio.
One of the great things about these bigger covers is that you can easily cut them down to size, allowing you to fit multiple individual plants under their protective canopy.
Material
Row covers are crafted from a range of materials, including polypropylene, micromesh, and thicker fabrics. The choice of material largely depends on the intended use case. For seedlings and newly planted tomatoes, peppers, or strawberry plants, lightweight row covers are an excellent option. These breathable fabrics provide essential protection from light frost, insects, and pests while still allowing for adequate moisture and sunlight to reach your plants.
However, be aware that lightweight covers can be prone to damage in high winds and may require securing with stakes or rocks. Additionally, caution is advised when using these covers as they can rip easily on sharp thorns.
Medium-weight row covers offer enhanced protection from pests and insects during spring, fall, and early winter. They can withstand temperatures up to 4-8°F below freezing, providing excellent frost protection.
Moreover, medium-weight covers can create a cozy environment for warm-season crops, raising temperatures to prevent overheating and extending the growing season for seedlings. While thicker row covers offer greater protection, they must be monitored carefully to avoid mold or rot setting in due to inadequate light or moisture. Regardless of the chosen material, it’s crucial to check the packaging for specific frost protection ratings.
8 Best Row Covers – Reviews
Agfabric Floating Row Cover
The Agfabric Floating Row Cover is an incredibly versatile tool for seed germination and frost protection, suitable for established plants. Its high-quality spun polypropylene fabric offers UV stabilization, allowing delicate plants to thrive while controlling air, moisture, and pests. This multifunctional cover provides up to 28°F frost protection and 85% light transmission, making it an ideal solution for early spring, fall, and summer seasons.
By regulating heat, wind, moisture, and pest control, the row cover blanket promotes better harvests and earlier crop yields. In windy weather, it can also be used for pollination control, providing good protection from damaging gusts. The lightweight and breathable fabric is easy to install, allowing you to use the entire blanket or cut it into smaller pieces to suit individual plants.
Agfabric offers row covers in various sizes, colors – green, dark green, white, dark blue, or tan – and thicknesses, making it a great value for money. Some notable pros of this product include its premium quality, multi-application, high-quality fabric, reusability, UV protection, and ability to control air and moisture. It also provides good coverage, anti-freezing properties, and can be used to trap heat and moisture, resulting in bigger, better, and earlier crop yields.
However, the cover may develop holes easily if not secured properly due to its fragile material. Some heavier fabrics may also limit light transmission.
SUNPRO Plant Cover
Elevate your plants’ chances at thriving with the versatile SUNPRO Plant Cover. This expansive 10 x 30-feet rectangle row cover provides ample coverage for seed germination in spring and summer, as well as seedling growth during winter. Its remarkable adaptability allows it to be draped over fruit trees, bushes, or used as a plant tunnel. Additionally, it can easily be cut into smaller pieces to accommodate individual plants.
Whether shielding your plants from frost, sleet, snow, or chilling winds, or keeping them safe from insects and other pests, the reusable plant cover boasts durable, breathable, and eco-friendly construction made from thick non-woven polypropylene fabric. The lightweight yet breathable design also safeguards against sun damage while allowing air and moisture to reach your plants. To bolster frost protection, simply layer extra fabric over your plants for added security.
SUNPRO stands behind its product with a satisfaction guarantee, ensuring your investment is protected. With its impressive range of benefits, the plant cover offers exceptional value.
Easy Gardener Plant Protection Blanket
The Easy Gardener Plant Protection Blanket is an ideal solution for safeguarding small to medium-sized shrubs, bushes, and potted plants from harsh weather conditions and pests. Made from durable, reusable, and recyclable fabric, this row cover blanket provides excellent coverage for plants up to 4 feet in height and 36 inches wide. With its moderate thickness of 1mm, the blanket offers 6-8°F of frost protection, making it perfect for late fall and early spring frosts.
Its porous material allows for adequate light, air, and moisture to reach your plants while also protecting them from salt, wind, rain, and animals. The lightweight design ensures that flowers, leaves, or harvests will not be crushed when using the blanket. Furthermore, the UV-treated fabric guarantees a long-lasting product. Easy to install and remove, this versatile blanket can be used for an entire garden bed or cut and sewn together to cover multiple plants.
With its excellent value, durable construction, and good price, it’s no wonder that the Easy Gardener Plant Protection Blanket is a popular choice among gardeners. The blanket is available in a 1-pack or 2-pack, offering flexibility for different gardening needs.
Gardaner Plant Cover
Whether you’re looking to safeguard your garden from pests, frost, or harsh weather conditions, the Gardaner Plant Cover is an effective solution. This versatile product provides reliable protection for up to 20-square-feet of landscaping, making it ideal for fruit trees, vegetables, and other plants. The non-woven microfiber fabric is surprisingly durable, successfully defending against birds, insects, and other pests during the growing season.
As temperatures drop, the cover also shields your plants from frost, sleet, snow, hail, and wind, requiring only an extra layer or two in extreme conditions. The lightweight yet breathable design of the plant cover allows plants to receive adequate hydration while capturing heat and offering anti-UV protection to prevent overheating. To ensure uninterrupted growth, simply remove the cover for watering purposes.
The Gardaner Plant Cover can be secured using garden stakes or plastic clips, preventing it from being blown away in strong winds. This adaptable product can also be easily trimmed to fit seedling boxes. While some users may find a few drawbacks, including the need to remove the cover for watering and potential rip damage, many appreciate its good quality, value, and effectiveness in defending plants against various threats.
Whether you’re gardening during spring, early summer, or early winter, this reliable plant cover is sure to provide valuable protection for your plants.
Valibe Plant Cover
The Valibe Plant Cover is a versatile choice for gardeners of all levels. Its durable construction, featuring a 0.74-ounce non-woven polypropylene material, withstands windy conditions and provides reliable protection from intense sunlight, cold temperatures, and harsh weather conditions. This cover can be used in early summer as well as winter, allowing plants to thrive while shielding them from detrimental elements.
Although the material is robust, it remains lightweight, ensuring delicate leaves, flowers, or vegetables are not damaged. The Valibe Plant Cover excels at seed germination and extending the growing season, making it an excellent option for commercial growers, home gardeners, and hobbyists alike.
Its benefits include great quality, excellent value for money, perfect design for general use row or seed-bed cover, ideal for early planting or extending the growing season, strong polypropylene material, lightweight construction, protection from birds, insects, and other pests, good wind protection, and allowance of essential air, light, and water to reach plants.
However, it is not designed for extreme winter conditions or extremely hot summer sun, and may carry a higher price tag than some alternatives. Nevertheless, the Valibe Plant Cover remains a popular choice among gardeners due to its reliable performance and versatility.
Tierra Garden Micromesh Tunnel Garden Cloche
The Tierra Garden Micromesh Tunnel Garden Cloche is an exceptional plant-protecting tool for both amateur and professional gardeners. Its robust 0.6mm thick, 3-meter long (118-inches wide x 24-inches high) ultra-fine mesh polyethylene fabric forms a formidable barrier against birds, animals, insects, frost, and wind. The breathable, UV-stabilized material ensures your plants receive the perfect balance of shade and moisture.
When necessary, the row cover’s drawstring ends provide effortless access to inspect or ventilate your plants. The rust-proof galvanized steel hoops effortlessly penetrate the soil, creating a secure tunnel that safeguards your plants from damage while providing an ideal environment. The smart one-piece accordion design allows for easy setup, quick folding, and storage when not in use.
You can tailor the cover to suit your needs by setting the steel hoops along the entire length or using it for specific sections of your garden. This versatile row cover is available in different materials, including micromesh, polyethylene, fleece, and netting. Choose from two sizes: standard and giant. Notably, the high-density 0.6mm ultra-fine mesh polyethylene fabric provides an ultimate barrier against pests, while its breathable nature allows for airflow.
The green tinted material also offers shade retention and moisture conservation. Key benefits include its high-quality construction, excellent value, durable design, and wind resistance. Additionally, the easy-to-install steel hoops create a sturdy tunnel, and the drawstring ends provide unobstructed access to your plants. If you’re looking for a reliable plant protector, the Tierra Garden Micromesh Tunnel Garden Cloche is an excellent choice.
Kasbon Plant Cover
The Kasbon Plant Cover offers a natural and effective solution to controlling insect damage, providing ideal coverage for fruit trees, raised bed vegetables, seedlings, and potted flowers. Made from strong and durable non-woven polypropylene fabric, this cover protects plants from harsh elements like frost, snow, hail, wind, low winter temperatures, and UV light, as well as insects, pests, and birds.
Its versatility is unmatched – use it to drape over individual plants, stabilize with rocks; spread over a raised garden bed and secure with the included 6 garden stakes; or create a fully enclosed grow tunnel using garden hoops (not included) and secure the ends with plastic ties. The breathable mesh allows light, moisture, and ventilation to reach your plants, promoting healthy growth. When needed, lift the sides for easy access and reuse.
This solution provides high-quality protection without relying on harsh pesticides. With its excellent value, strong material, and lightweight design, it’s an ideal choice for organic gardeners. While some users may find the lack of included hoops a drawback, many will appreciate the versatility and effectiveness of this innovative product.
Dalen Gardeneer Harvest-Guard Floating Garden Cover
When it comes to safeguarding your garden from the elements and pesky critters, the Dalen Gardeneer Harvest-Guard Floating Garden Cover is a reliable solution. This lightweight yet strong spun polypropylene fabric offers dual-purpose protection for germinating seeds, mature plants, and freshly planted grass seeds. The floating design ensures that your delicate plants are shielded from frost, harsh winds, and devouring insects and birds without being damaged in the process.
What’s more, this innovative cover is designed to improve germination rates by 100%, trapping the perfect amount of light, heat, and moisture to yield bigger, better, and earlier crop harvests. You can also use it to extend the growing season. The versatility of the Harvest-Guard row cover is unparalleled, making it suitable for a wide range of gardening applications, including vegetable gardens, strawberry rows, sloped areas, difficult-to-seed areas, and newly sown grass on your lawn.
To keep the cover securely in place during strong winds, simply use garden stakes or heavy rocks to anchor it. This row cover is incredibly easy to use – just unfold it and cut it to size for your specific gardening needs. Dalen offers the Harvest-Guard floating row cover in a 1- or 2-pack option, backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.
The pros of this product include its high quality, great value for money, exceptional versatility, strong and durable spun polypropylene fabric, breathable design that traps heat, light, and moisture, protection against frost, insects, and birds, lightweight yet floatable fabric, ideal for both frost protection and seed germination, and ease of use.
It’s also perfect for vegetable gardens, strawberry rows, sloped areas, difficult-to-seed areas, and newly sown grass, allowing you to extend the growing season with ease. The only potential drawbacks are that the material is not very windproof and may not be ideal for heavy rain or frost.
Our Top Pick for the Best Row Cover
When it comes to selecting the best row cover, our top recommendation is the Agfabric Floating Row Cover. This innovative product provides unparalleled protection for your plants throughout their entire growth cycle, from seeding to harvesting. With its lightweight yet remarkably strong fabric, the Agfabric floating row cover effectively shields your crops from the harshest weather conditions and pesky insects and pests.
As a result, your plants will thrive under its protective canopy, yielding a bountiful harvest that’s both safe and healthy. For those looking to secure their Agfabric Floating Row Cover, we recommend checking out current prices on Amazon.
