I put mine in the heated greenhouse each winter. It is only heated to 60*. The hardy ones are planted along the foundation of the house. A warm area in the house would be great.

I've overwintered creeping and upright sedum starts in pots outdoors over the winter (and believe me, it can get wet here in winter and spring!) without much trouble.

I half buried the small pots in the corner of my raised veggie bed and put a sheet of hard plastic across the blocks, over top of them and a few other seedlings/plant starts that wanted dry-ish conditions over winter. I put a few rocks on top of the hard plastic to keep it from blowing off. Then when the plants/soil in the pots looked dry I would throw a few handfuls of snow on top of the pots.

You might also just put it next to the foundation house, where it is protected and kept dry by the overhang of your house, or even in an unheated garage.
CMK

the one thing i suspect you couldnt kill if you wanted to.. it would be sedum.. lol ... but you are probably right on the winter water issue ...

i would simply put pots on the north side of a building.. no sun ever ... and tip them on there sides.. once they were frozen solid ... presuming the plants are fully zone appropriate ... this way.. when snow melts.. you dont have water accumulating in forzen potting media ... and a dormant plant wont care about sideways ...

if you are meaning you have them in shallow tray type pots ... gather them together.. and get a box from the grocer.. and once frozen.. say 1/1 .. put the box over them to keep out moisture.. and uncover in march or so ... when the pots thaw naturally ...

me thinks you might be over-thinking sedum a bit.. dont you??? .. unless these are some rare sedum i never heard of.. and i claim no real knowledge of the foo foo ones ...

ken

thanks, everyone. Ken, I think you are right. They just look so pretty now....especially in the first light snow. They are potted in the bowl of bird bath and the bottom 1/4 of a formerly large clay pot that broke after being left out all winter. I really do not enjoy fussing with overwintered plants or storing and trying to remember to water hunks of brown vegetative matter which involves trecherous basement stairs.
It seems I underthought what first appeared to be overthought. think I'll stick them outside somewhere out of the elements
idabean

Marie - I have some shallow succulent planters and I just put them where they won't get too much moisture - under a stone bench or on my back porch. This has worked well so far. I do this with my bearded iris that are still in pots too. I have enough inside plants to deal with.
: D

righto ...

the issue .. simply put is liquid water ... on a frozen media ... you know.. those days where its warm enough for snow thaw ... or rain.. rather than snow ...

the media.. which is chosen for drainage.. all of a sudden.. being frozen soil.. does not drain ...

a secondary issue is the freeze/thaw cycles in very late winter ...

once the media is frozen.. just dont let water accumulate ... heck i have extra garbage can lids .. kids saucers .. cardboard anything.. to just shield ... rose cones ... or deflect liquid water ... JUST DONT LET HEAT ACCUMULATE UNDER ANYTHING ...

when its still winter.. but basically spring.. early march.. z5 ... take the stuff off.. no waiting until may ... lol .. let nature bring them out of dormancy..

do NOT let any heat accumulate .. so i would prefer full shade ... house.. bench.. deck ... etc ...

ken

While I might put them in a drier spot - under a bench, under the eaves, etc. - for a bit of extra protection, I would have to think that sedums in a pot will stay much drier than sedums in the ground, no? And my sedums in the ground always come through the winter fine.

As for freezing, the last few years I've been just too darned pooped to lug my huge(but decreasing!) pot ghetto into the garage, and most of it stays out in the driveway. I've hardly lost a thing in years, and the sedums, irises, etc., in the pots come through as well.

I personally would never bring them in, but that's only because my door is the Threshold of Doom for any plant that crosses it, lol. I've got one plant from our NE Forum trip to Logee's a few years back that I'm trying to keep alive. Everything else dies. But if you are better at this overwintering indoors thing than I am, good luck!

:)
Dee

We had sedum left over from transplanting that we left on concrete, over the winter, completely forgot about it until I noticed it blooming late summer.

It was a mild winter, and maybe we have a tough variety, but that stuff is tough.

I have an old hanging basket pot full of sedums. In summer I put this pot in a decorative pot and in winter I bury the pot in the garden. Never an issue with sogginess or the fact it freezes. After all, sedums in the ground are often froze solid here anyway and go through freeze-thaw cycles.

tj

I've wintered over my sedums and succulents with my houseplants. Mine is in a sunny west window. They aren't quite getting enough sun and they reach toward the sun, but that's an easy fix in the spring. A south window would be better, which I don't have.

Ken - sideways - brilliant!

I've wondered about this too and there's nothing out there that says Sedum need a dormant period for those curious about the "house plant" route. More good testimonials here too. A few little tips I potted are confused but one is making a new little flower cluster.

I overwinter many sedum in pots outiside in my holding beds. In addition to very sharp draining soil and I mulch them with gravel. Seems to work as I have very few casualties.

You all seem to have the sedum grown in pots, can these be planted out? I bought some seeds, but I know nothing about the plant except for the visual. Do they have to be kept in pots?

Marie,
I was like you, I wasn't sure what I was going to do with my sedums. So, some were planted in the ground, some in pots were brought indoors and some are in a cool room in the house. I also took about 50 cutting, which I hope will survive. The last I am not thinking was a good idea. But I think they are fine.

I have a bunch of "Angelina" (I think?) sedum growing in a window box.

Rob

Marie, is there a window in your garden shed? If they can tuck in the garden shed where they get some light, they will stay dry. Unless you can leave it outside where it won't get any accumulated water, I think the water freezing will break your birdbath planter since it doesn't have drainage.

rob.. you should have started your own post ...

the issue is too much water.. making your media turn into an ice cube.. roots need air.. ice wont allow that ...

cant you just pull them out of the pot.. and stick them in the veg garden or some such ... and repot in spring?

will give you the answer.. in your new post

ken

You really can't win for loosing. On the Ornamental Grass forum you'd get chastised and corrected by the long time members who reigned for starting any new post on an already brought up subject if there was an old thread that dealt with the subject & you were told to check the past archives before starting a brand new thread and what...... wasting space? Heck if I know.

Here you get corrected if you don't start your own brand new thread.

Whatever.

Sedums like you have are super easy to grow pass along plants and any little piece, no matter how minuscule will root and form a new plant even if its just tossed willy nilly on the ground (or in a crack in a side walk). In fact I consider them nuisances in some spots because they root so easy and light raking spreads the plants everywhere because they break so easily. They survive in winter just fine as long as there is decent drainage. Pull em out and store them in a sack in winter and they will be fine come spring or any pieces that are broken off and drop on the floor will make it if you scoop them up with the dirt and toss them out on the ground even if you wait until several weeks later to clean up. I don't see how you can kill them except by drowning them, just be careful to plant them where you want them because otherwise you might be picking them out of all kinds of places. They commonly use them for roof gardens, that should tell you something about their ability to survive.

As Babs said, the pot breaking from freeze is the issue. A clay pot will break.

PS--- FYI ---I am in OKLAHOMA ZONE 7 (hopefully no one will complain that is not in my GW name).

Thanks everyone,

I posted my comment on this thread because I found it doing a Google search. I knew it was old, but I figured as long as it was bumped back to the front of the line, it was worth a try.

I'm also not quite clear weather Sedums need that dormancy period or not. In any case, I went ahead and took some cuttings to winter indoors. I have several Sedums I'm experimenting with, one, "Sedum Lanceolatum", is hardy down to zone 2.

"You really can't win for loosing. On the Ornamental Grass forum you'd get chastised and corrected by the long time members who reigned for starting any new post on an already brought up subject if there was an old thread that dealt with the subject & you were told to check the past archives before starting a brand new thread and what...... wasting space? Heck if I know.

Here you get corrected if you don't start your own brand new thread."

Yep, It's A Gamble.

Rob

If your pot is plastic you can dig a hole and place the pot and plants in the ground for the winter. I never have drainage issues placing potted plants in the ground as all my pots have good drainage holes.

Many sedum are very hardy and will survive being placed in an unheated shed or garage.

Thanks guys,

That's my biggest problem, I live in a condo with no garage, or any land for that matter to dig holes. Just one mid sized balcony and one small, Facing East and North respectively.

I might try a pot in pot setup - Put the pot w/ the Sedum growing in it, in a much larger pot filled w/ mulch as insulation.

Rob

You could always wrap the pot with bubble wrap (with holes in the bottom for drainage) to keep the temperature more even. Don't cover over the top, though, or you may cook your plants if sun hits it. If you have an overhang of some kind, place it there so there is less moisture getting to the pot. If you can put it out of direct sun, that will help reduce freeze/thaw cycles as well. IME, very dry is fine for sedums in the winter, certainly much better than moisture which can cause rotting. I have a clay pot of sedums and sempervirens (hens and checks) that gets overwintered in a cold sunporch, so no moisture all winter, and the plants seem to survive well in it. If you don't have a spot that will limit moisture, you can turn the pot on its side to keep water from seeping down into the soil.

(For me the main reasons for starting a new thread are that some folks will skip an old thread, while others will do what I did and answer the original poster's Q without even noticing yours, though I did skim the previous answers. Most of the forums I frequent prefer starting a new thread - I don't visit the grass forum.)

Marie. You obviously erased your posts so I will delete my last two as well. Whether you intend to insult or not I wouldn't know but keep in mind that when you make those kinds of correcting posts, it often makes the other person feel embarrassed, regret commenting at all or asking a question in the first place. Maybe the best thing is to allow people to post in their own way without the need of correcting for posting wrong or congratulating them for posting correctly.

http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/3504689/new-thread

Rob