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Can I overwinter perennials in pots (outside)?

16 years ago

Or would it be better to plant them out now? I have one lone WS wild bergamot plant that I really want to see make it to next year. Right now, it's in a pot, and I'd like to keep it in one so I can keep an eye on it and not forget its location in spring. However, I wonder if its chance of survival would be better in the ground, where the soil temp would probably stay warmer.

I also have just a couple small summer sown dianthus (which is a biennial I believe) and perennial alyssum. I don't know if I should try to pot these up to keep through winter outside or plant them out immediately.

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Comments (9)

vera_eastern_wa
16 years ago
I have Wild Bergamont/Beebalm (Monarda fistulosa)also. It's native back home (zone 4) but I'd still bury the pot in case it cracks over the winter. However, you still have time to get it out of the pot and into the ground if you wish :D

Vera
bonnys
16 years ago
I would plant it out and mark where I put it. Unless you place the pot in a place that will get the cold but not freeze it will probably freeze solid and kill the plant. Burying the pot and all is a good idea too...that way you could just lift the pot in the spring to continue babying your special survivor.
Bonny
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Everything I grow is in a pot of one size or another, and I've had pretty good luck over the years keeping things alive through the winter. What I do is I take some cheap shower curtains from the dollar store, and place them on the ground next to a wall. I then place all the pots I want to overwinter on this plastic curtain, and fill in all the spaces with soil from my annual and veggie pots. I don't allow this pot spot to extend more than three feet from the wall. I place boards around the perimeter and make sure that all the pots are 'burried' up to the rim. Essentially I've just created a temporary raised bed. Before the ground freezes, I give everything a final watering, cover it with a thick layer of newspapers, and then cover all that with another cheap shower curtain (you'll need to weigh it down with something). If you don't have enough extra soil to fill in all the spaces, you could use tightly packed leaves, straw, or newspaper. I find that the soil works best, but the other things will help a fair bit. If you're just talking about a couple of pots, and you've got some actual ground, you could just dig a hole and burry the pots. If you have a cold room, or an unheated crawl space you could probably put the pots there too. If the pot is really big - 40 gallons or more - you might not need to protect it at all. One thing to note is if you try to overwinter anything in a terracotta pot, the pot will probably break. BP
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We're on the other side of Lake Ontario from Rochester and up a bit from Toronto. Late November seems reasonable. You can't imagine how unpleasant (very cold hands) it is to chop through perhaps an inch (by then) of frozen soil and plant spring bulbs in mid December. As said elsewhere, I find no problem in overwintering perennials, planted in garden soil, in pots outside. Water up to the time of freezing. Ours do fine, frozen solid, in a protected place (e.g. against a wall) covered by the snow. As per Ken (not that he referred to this exactly), the soil in the pots should be about the same as the soil in the garden. As a general rule, here at least, plants grown in growers' peat-perlite mix should have most of it pulled off before being planted in the garden. Otherwise, here at least, the peat-perlite mix will freeze, in winter, at a different rate to the garden soil around the plant and the plant is likely to be killed.
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Nancy, as far as hardiness goes, the clematis should be fine. The large sized trash cans (which I hope have drainage holes--must have since the plants have been doing fine so far) should provide plenty of soil mass for allowing them to make it through the winter alive. During extremely cold winters, you might get dieback on some or all of the top mature vines which might delay their bloom period the following spring but that shouldn't be a problem in your zone. If you mean by chocolate vine, that you have akebia planted in the same trash cans with the clematis, I would promptly remove the akebia. They can get quite large and their root systems will occupy most of the trash can eventually. Not a good thing for the clematis. If you don't mean akebia, could you give more information on what the chocolate vine is?
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plays_in_dirt_dirt
16 years ago
mo girl ... I overwintered mums in pots planted in the ground and they came through just fine ... in the spring, I just dug up the pots and planted the mums ... they are filled with buds now ... I also had blue false indigo made it through the winter in a milk jug left outside, totally exposed ... that one I just forgot about and it, too, is doing well ...
mo_girl
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks for answering my question everyone. It's nice that so many people on this forum are willing to be helpful, even with some of my weird questions.

I will probably bury it in the pot then. That was one option I didn't think about. I'm guessing the roots won't develop that much in the ground under the pot during the winter, and I can dig up and plant in early spring, since it's a pretty hardy plant. I probably should mark the areas where my perennials are pretty soon, so I won't dig the rest of them up come spring when I'm getting itchy.
stage_rat
16 years ago
In general, a plant in a pot can survive your winter if it's hardy for one zone colder. To be safe, you could try it only with plants hardy to 2 zones colder. There's still the risk of the pot cracking, like vera said.

I stick pots into my compost pile--it's easy to plunk them in, and the pile is big enough to insulate the pots well. No digging! :)
busylizzy
16 years ago
I have no problem overwintering hardy perennials in pots in the ground.
I had 1/2 deadNiobe clematis that I picked up for 1.00 at Lowes last fall, sunk the pots in the ground and this spring it doubled enough I was able to lift the plant out and cut it in half to have 2 plants.
Very soon I will be taking apart the melon garden ground plastic and straw covering to sink some Ws'd perennials I never managed to get out of thier pots and the summer sowed baby's breath , canterbury bells, candytuft that are seedlings I plan on sinking the seed trays and mulching the babies till next spring.
vera_eastern_wa
16 years ago
It just dawned on me that I didn't bury a pot last fall that contained new rooted summer cuttings of Citrus Thyme (T x citriodorus 'Silver Queen') and they lived! Wouldn't recommend it tho :D

Vera
highalttransplant
16 years ago
Last year I overwintered a couple of pots of Dragon's Blood Sedum. They survived just fine, even though it got to -20. These were those stone look-a-like pots, that are made of some kind of foam.

Stage rat's rule of thumb makes perfect sense to me, since the roots will get colder above ground, than in the ground.

I'm actually trying to come up with a container combination this year that can survive all winter. Maybe an Alberta Spruce with a Heuchera, and the Dragon's Blood?
Linda G (zone 6a)
16 years ago
Hey all, what do you think about this? I can't dig in at all but I have a protected area about 10' wide - 1 side is a a 16' storage shed, other side is a 3' stone wall and one end is a solid picket fence. Can't really bury the pots there but I can mulch them to death with lots and lots of leaves and even border it with hay bales to keep the wind out. I have 2 butterfly bushes and some other perennials that I can't put in the ground that I am hoping to stick back in this area - think I might be able to save things?

Thanks!

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