This is how the Chinese taught me, in the early 1980’s, to protect new tea plants from the sun. They now use greenhouse shade cloth and nylon rods but the concept is the same. This has to be in place for almost a year, until next years new growth starts. Then you slowly cut strips in the cover to expost the new plant growth which has leaves that grow with a new cell arrangement to tolerate more sun light (actually all plants do this). I have used mostly “silt fence” to do this but have used plywood, foofing tin, cloth and scrap building materials to do this. I have had to stake and tie down the covers.
This design has worked well as you can move the poles up and down as the sun angle changes but most importantly, it can stand lots of wind storms. We have had some major winter storms this year with near hurricane force winds and I have not had to go a quarter mile away, find the cover and rebuild it. Also, I have not had to tie this design down.
This cover method works well without the expense of a green house, expensive shade cloth, pots, root medium and the extra work of replanting once the plants are conditioned to grow out in the sun. I guess this is a tech secret I learned from the Chinese growers as I looked like a tourist with a camera around my neck.