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Wintering Plants in Pots

© Marge Talt

 I don't know about you, but I keep a lot of plants in pots. I'm not just talking about houseplants or seasonal annuals, but plants that would be hardy in my USDA zone 7 garden - if they were in the ground.

 Some of these are waiting for new homes; some are cuttings or seedlings, and some are marginally hardy plants that I keep in pots rather than risk losing them completely. Of course, there are also a smattering of plants that aren't hardy, but aren't houseplants.

 Over the years, I've used different methods of bringing these guys safely through the winter. You may have devised your own ways of doing this, but, judging from the number of posts I've seen on various lists from people in a panic about what to do with their plants, I thought some of you might be interested in how I've wintered plants in pots.

Diggin In

 Hardy potted plants are at a disadvantage during freezing weather because their roots are not protected by the earth, as they would be if they were planted in the ground. The top growth of hardy plants is designed to withstand frosty weather; but their roots are not.

 If you've got the space, you can dig your pots of hardy plants in for the winter.

In the Ground

 If you've got an area with loose soil and good drainage (maybe a bed you've prepared but not planted or one of your vegetable garden beds), you can open a trench and line up your pots in the trench and cover them up to their tops with soil. This puts the roots underground and works well for gallon pots or larger. Smaller pots are hard to manage with this method. After you've dug them in and backfilled, mulch as you would if they were planted in the ground. Next spring, dig them up as soon as your last frost date passes. Don't be tempted to leave them in the trench "until later" because they will send roots out of the pot's drainage holes as soon as they can get around to it.

Plunge Beds

 If you have no spare bed, but do have some space, you can make temporary plunge beds from boards or a combination of boards and concrete blocks. Use at least 1x6 boards and 1 x 8 is better, but you just need to have a height equal to the depth of your largest pot. You can use railroad ties or landscape timbers, too, although the wood doesn't have to be treated if you're only going to use it for a season or so. You can even use strips of plywood - anything that will hold in the contents of the bed will work, although some materials may be more aesthetically pleasing than others. I have mine in a "work area" and don't care what they look like. If you know these will be temporary, you don't have to nail the boards together; just pound in stakes in front of the beds to hold the boards upright. If you use concrete blocks, one block high should be ample. The blocks should stay in place without any anchoring to the soil, as will railroad ties. Fill the resulting plunge bed with wood chips, bagged mulch, sawdust or sand and bury your pots up to the rim.

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