Plants will be respiring continuously, which is an exothermic process. Therefore the plants will be producing a small amount of heat. The protection from frost may be more a result of the vastly smaller convection current of the coat compared to the atmosphere rather than by reducing any conduction away of heat produced by the plant, however.
Keeping the plant out of the wind by 'dressing it' will reduce the rate of transpiration when the stomata are open. I would very tentatively suggest that, as water has a very high specific heat capacity, having a greater volume of water within the plant would help to retain any heat that was produced by respiration. However this is entirely speculation on my part.
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