I have done this by putting the plants in 5 gallon buckets and filling the buckets with slightly damp sand, or if I can't get that, potting soil from the store. I dig holes in the snow to the ground outside the north side of the barn. The buckets then are put in the snow holes and get covered with snow. They are usually okay until I can plant them as soon as the ground can be worked. I have had good luck asking nurseries to put a blue ice cold pack in the package, in case the package is transported in heated trucks, etc. They often charge more, but it is worth it. In the past, I have gotten plants that were coming out of dormancy when I got them. In these cases, I pot them up like above, except they go into a heated area with light, such as my basement until the outside plants break dormancy. Good luck.

Paw Paws aren't the easiest thing to start from bareroot. And, I hope they don't freeze beyond their survival temperature in transit. What I would do in your situation is pot each one in good potting media and keep it in a cold place just above freezing for the duration of the winter. I actually did this last year with a replacement bare root pecan that Stark's chose to ship to me in early November. I knew it would never survive a Michigan winter outside, so in the garage it went -- temps were between 40 and 45 all winter. It stayed dormant until April when I could move it to the greenhouse, and it actually did really well last summer. Good luck.

Well Al you were wrong last time and you are still wrong. Ken Love and all the farms now growing figs in Hawaii from cuttings received from UC Davis I'm sure would disagree with you too. If they were taking your advice the No Chill Fruit Project never would have started and it has been a resounding success. For sure fruitnut who is the owner of Kuffle Creek would disagree with you when it comes to apples. He has literally grown hundreds of northern varieties under no chill conditions and has over one hundred growing at any one time. So far he has not found any that did not fruit under no chill conditions. In both cases some varieties faired better than others or the fruit tasted better than others. A few fig varieties did not thrive in Hawaii. Nearly all deciduous stone fruit appear to need a certain amount of chill hours to fruit but even there are a few exceptions. I have posted a video on how to harvest figs several times. All the healthy trees in the video are from a zero chill area in Hawaii where the figs are harvested all year long. My understanding is that the trees do go dormant for 1-2 weeks every two to five years. They look healthy to me. I have always been of the opinion that someone with personal experience is not at the mercy of someone with book knowledge. Ken Love and the members of the No Chill Fruit Project have personal experience and so does Applenut and he is working with UC Davis and Dave Wilson nursery. My personal preference is to agree to disagree. However in this case I will agree with those who have copious amounts of personal experience growing and helping others grow under no chill conditions. Take a look at the Kuffle Creek Videos and see for yourself. The varieties that have been northern varieties grow right next to the southern varieties and produce large crops. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jwtYhS2Qcs&feature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxL1F0I6ltE&feature=related Here is a link that might be useful: The Fabulous Fig

I purchased some bare root hostas from Costco (the end of February I think). I potted them up and moved them back and forth a couple times between outside and the garage. As of now, most of them are looking great. Most are leafed out and all of them showing signs of life. Based on my good experience, I picked up two more boxes just this past weekend, one box of heuchera and one box of daylilies. I don't know if these have been sitting in the store for the last two months or if they get new stock. At least one pack of daylilies that I peaked in looked like they were rotting. The heuchera did look a little odd and it was hard to find the crown. They have been potted up and sitting outside for a few days. No green, but I am crossing my fingers. - Brent