those temps are irrelevant.. as far as cold ...

the bigger issue is winter water management ... too soggy is not good for dormant plants.. of just about any kind ...

also.. i .. in my MI.. would worry about early dormancy break ... and frost or freeze cycles ... the air will warm much faster than the soil will ...

dont really know what you mean when you say the wheelbarrow is on its last legs ... if it could still be wheeled around.. it could probably be protected in a barn or shed.. or some such ...

but haven has a grand idea ..

and also .. you could just heel the plants into mother earth for winter.. and replant them in the wheelbarrow in spring ....

and ... the biggest variable.. will be quality of the media in the barrow .. its not a dirt thing ...

ken

Well, it sounds like this is not such a good idea for perennials. I try not to make extra work for myself. Tho if I had room for the wheelbarrow in my shed, Ken's idea would have worked. So, I guess I'll have to plant annuals if I want to do it. I'm usually too cheap to buy more than just the fewest necessary annuals but maybe I'll splurge next year and see if it's worth it.

Wish I could grow from seed but I don't think I've ever had a seed make it to "adulthood" except once some tickseed made it.

i use a wheel barrow and i have everything potted up in the cloth pots. they'll get drilled into the ground later this month … if i can find the energy.

you have a couple posts.. in them.. you seems to have great ideas.. and then declare it all too much work ...

I LIKE THIS LOGIC ... lol .. i use it often ..

keep up the good work ... lol

ken

Yes!! I get these grand ideas from something I've seen and not until later do I realize how much maintenance I'm creating for myself. The kids already complain that they wish the inside of our house looked half as good as our yard.

dhaven, been thinking more abt your idea. Nice pots are so expensive that I always have several plants in the cheap plastic black pots that Home Depot sells (they look like nursery pots). And I'm always trying to figure out how to camouflage those pots. (I have spray painted some of them.) Maybe I should hide those pots in the wheelbarrow. And I've often got plants I've bought waiting to be planted - they could go in there temporarily. The wheel barrow could be an ever changing bed. I could also put the pots of pieces of plants that I'm rooting in there. Right now most of that kind of stuff is on my deck or sitting on the ground near it and it looks messy. I'd still have to take out all the pots come winter but since the wheelbarrow would be solving several problems, the work of that seems way more palatable now.

Yes, in Spring fill the wheelbarrow with planting mix, then sink the (ugly black nursery pots in that in an arrangement you like, and plant some annuals around the edges. the whole idea is NOT to see any parts of the pots. At the end of the summer, take the pots out and winter them. Hostas can grow happily for a few years in those 1 gal nursery pots, as they don't mind having their roots crowded. You CAN do it.

-Babka