Hi, Phyl. I would pretty much offer the same thing Pam said. If you set the plants on the floor, where they will actually remain warmer than if elevated to any degree. (Before I get corrected I'll point out that heat transfer by conduction, convection, and radiation are at work in a building. Even though heat rises & leaves the colder air at the floor, the conduction and radiation of geo-heat coming through the floor into the soil mass is enough to trump the cool air that settles there.) You should be able to pick up as full zone in hardiness just by being careful about not leaving the o/h door open for extended periods, so zone 6 plants should over-winter just fine, on the floor, unprotected. You can pick up another zone of hardiness (to 7) by inverting a cardboard box over the zone 7 plants, which is an excellent way to trap heat coming through the floor while still maintaining enough air flow so mold doesn't become a problem. The biggest problem with over-wintering in the garage is that plants will invariably leaf-out well ahead of their counterparts in the landscape. Though they need no light while dormant/quiescent, they will need light after they start post-dormant growth, which will occur after the chill requirement of the plant has been met and soil temperatures have been elevated to above approx 45* for several consecutive days. Freeze/thaw cycles do not kill plants unless the actual root temperatures drop below the minimum the plant is genetically programmed to deal with, or plants are warm enough for long enough to start out-of-season growth, which can later freeze. Billions of plants in nursery operations are successfully over-wintered annually under cover, so to suggest the practice is somehow inappropriate is quite a stretch. I overwinter around 200 containers of plants hardy up to 7 in my garage. All I do is toss a little snow on them from time to time to keep the roots from drying completely. Al

cateyanne: There is nothing impossible about what your are proposing. It's just a question of how much trouble you are willing to go to to achieve your objective. Agree with Fruitnut that everbearer/dayneutral varities are best for hanging baskets, since basket grown strawberries are essentially pets, not heavy berry producers. It's better to have basket plants putz along producing small amounts of berries over a longer period than a 3-week production burst in spring. Strawberry plants can become quite large, and 3 plants or so would be plenty for an 18 inch basket. However, dayneutrals are no different from Junebearers in the sense that they should be frequently renewed from new runners to keep up vigor and production. When plants are 2 years old or more, they are in steep decline. You can read the history of a strawberry plant by examining the crown, the length of which is determined by the number of leaves it has produced in its lifetime. Long crowns mean old, weak plants, and old roots as well. It is not a good thing to mix Junebearers and everbearers together to the point you don't know which is which. You will have to do something about that. Everyone who grows strawberries in a reasonably fertile bed situation ends up with too many plants if all the runners are allowed to root. That is why strawberry beds should be heavily thinned each spring to allow the plants to stand at least 8 inches apart. Plants with long, older crowns are removed first, in favor of vigorous new runners that grew in the previous season. Maintaining a strawberry bed is a process of constant renewal. Most of us who thin strawberries in spring simply throw the older plants out. Nowhere is it written that you must find a home for each and every strawberry plant. Most of the time you end up throwing out some new runners too, since if you leave plants too crowded, the sun will not kiss the berries and they will be small and less numerous. Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

I would recommend planting them in pots and burying the pots in your garden bed since it's in a sheltered spot. You should be able to just cover them with straw just like the other plants. I wouldn't cut the foliage back unless it looks like it could possibly have diseases.

If your garage doesn't freeze or freeze for very long then pot them up and only water them 3 or 4 times during the winter. If the garage is going to have them freeze solid then your better off just stuffing them in a spot in the ground near the foundation. Brown bagging them might work. Maybe mist them once and a while. Don't use damp sawdust or peat. They will rot. While they are dormant you have to be careful not to drown them. They really need very little water especially while they are sleeping. Can't let them dry into iris leather either. That's why I say potting them up might be your best bet. I've kept a few in pots in a cold room in the house. Stuck them in the window and pretty much ignored them for most of the winter. Pretty much treated them like a real cactus. Tried to keep them as dormant as possible. Watered very sparingly. I'd have to use dynamite to plant anything in March here. Did kick them out at the end of April or beginning of May when the snow is done and I can move the soil. Got a little sunburn and windburn but survived.