[Yana]

The weather has been so rubbish that the new strawberry beds I planned have been very late in being planted up. Some of the plants are now romping away with a few showing the beginning of flowers, others are looking a bit sickly and I fear I have lost them due to the frost.
My question is that given the cold nights we have had I have not covered the plants with fleece as I thought that they needed to be 'open' so the developing flowers could be pollinated. Am I right or should I have covered them?
I have made debris netting covers to stop the birds getting to the fruit when it appears.

[JayG]

Strawberry plants themselves are normally pretty hardy, but the actual flowers can get frosted and fail to develop fruit (the centres of the flowers turn black.  )

I use garden netting over wire hoops to keep the birds off whilst allowing pollinating insects easy access - if you are using something with a finer mesh you can only net after the flowers have set, which is obviously a bit more complicated, especially if the plants don't all flower in sync!

[TerryB]

The plants will recover and should not be covered even during a hard winter.
If you kept them inside before you planted them this may be why they look a bit sickly.

As JayG said I wouldn't use debri netting because this will stop insects from getting to the flowers. Save this for lettuce etc.

[Yana]

Thanks all. That is great advice.