Do cold frames work to overwinter trees in pots in Zone 3?
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5 years ago
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Mad Diary of Zone Busting in Zone 3 ...The End is a Long Way Away
Comments (7)Oh my. What is a passionate rose lover like you doing in that glacial hell hole? Reading about your endeavors has exhausted me and I haven't even lifted a shovel. I admire your grit and determination, but would love to see you rewarded with thousands of blooms on your rose bushes for all your hard work. I bet they could use engineers in zones 7 to 10!...See MoreOverwintering potted trees/shrubs
Comments (3)I had a weigela that survived in a pot all winter but it was not intentional to leave it unplanted, just didn't get around to doing it during the gardening season! I think you can wrap things up and put them in your garage. I seriously wouldn't bother with plants that are totally outside our zone, seems like an uphill battle full of potential casualties. Ask me how I know, lol. Glad you are enjoying the city. This post was edited by Donna.in.Sask on Mon, May 19, 14 at 15:33...See MoreOverwintering hydrangeas in pots - zone 6
Comments (7)I think that the Hydrangeas that I overwinter do best if they're allowed to get very cold and very dormant during the winter. The times I put them into a too warm place they don't do as well. And they always want to send out flowers long before I'm ready. It's a funny sight to go down to a cellar and see this plant with white, bleached out foliage and flower in the late winter. It still will do OK, but not the best. I've always thought it must be the equivalent of keeping me up all night. I look pretty OK, but I'm not really OK. I'd keep them outside as long as I could and then try to find a place that was very very cold. I end up keeping mine all outside under cover of some sort. That's always worked best for me. If I have plants inside a cellar, say, I water very sparingly. Very. Hay...See Moreoverwintering macrophylla hydrangeas in cold zones
Comments (72)July 14, 2016, z4: I live in West Central MN, z4, have had an Endless Summer, Twist & Shout, planted on East corner of house since summer of 2011 (5 yrs at time of this writing). It gets full sun in morning, a little dappled sun in afternoon for a very short time, rich soil, moist conditions, landscape fabric covered with wood mulch, no turf or other nearby vegetation to compete with. This should be perfect Hydrangea conditions, and while this plant has been robust and healthy from the very beginning, it does NOT get anywhere near its advertised size. (Label that came on my plant says 4 to 5 ft tall and wide.) It dies back completely to the ground every winter so growth starts all over, from ground level, every spring, rather late in the spring, and reaches its maximum size of 2 ft tall X 3 ft wide in mid July. This also means it blooms only on new growth. Though it's advertised as blooming on both new and old growth, there is no old growth that survives the winter for blooms to grow on. I do not cut it back in the fall....don't touch it at all.....and leave the old growth until the following season. In the spring, I clean up the dead and fallen leaves from the year before but leave the old stems standing. (I started leaving the previous year's dead stems through the following spring beginning from the time I planted it, always hoping that, if given enough time, they'd come to life and be that "old growth" that would give the plant that bigger size and more flowers. I've given up that idea, but it's just a habit now. It's become one of those, "This is how I manage this plant because I know it does no harm" , kind of things.) Once the new growth is nearing the height of the previous year's stems, I simply break the old ones off as close to ground level as I can without disturbing new growth, usually ending up to be 3-4 inches above ground level, completely hidden by the new growth. Because they're "dead", the old stems just snap off by hand, very easily, and those few inches that may be left behind have fallen into the soil by the time late fall arrives and the plant once again goes into dormancy, has shed its summer foliage, and everything that was living that summer dies back completely over the coming winter. Over the summer and early fall, it usually has up to 12 blooms at any given time, depending on how much TLC it gets. Blooms range in size from 3" to 7" across (older blooms). Each flower lasts a long time. As far as the color of the flowers, some years they are more on the purple side, some years they are a bit more pinkish. Most years, there's an interesting mix of both colors on each individual flower, often times starting out more on the pink side but changing to purple with a smattering of pink as the blooms mature to full size. I don't know how the plant determines, but it does so on its own since I do NOT amend the soil with anything to change the PH level or influence the bloom color. All I do as far as feeding is give it a drink of water soluble "Bloom Booster" fertilizer (10-52-10) three or four times during the summer, beginning around July 1 (when the plant is nearing its full size and focusing most of its energy into putting on new blooms), and ending the end of August, at the latest. I tried giving it a balanced fertilizer beginning earlier in the season and found that it there was lots of green but sparse on flowers and could get rather leggy. This feeding routine seems to give the best results, in my situation, anyway. I'm very fortunate to live in an area of glacier-rich black soil (black gold!) where pretty much EVERYTHING I've ever planted in my 40 yrs of gardening/landscaping grows much larger and faster than what's stated on the labels. I was expecting the same with this Hydrangea, that its mature size would be greater than its label indicated, so I gave it plenty of room, which is doesn't come close to filling. I've decided to transplant it either this fall or next spring (depending on what I find on the internet for info on how it will stand up to fall transplanting in my zone, which I've not yet found). I think I'll put a Black Lace Elderberry bush in the vacated spot and move the Twist&Shout Hydrangea further down the east side of the house, next to a large bunch of established White Phlox just about to break into beautiful full bloom this time of year. That's my only disappointment with this Hydrangea, its ultimate size. According to my experience, it will never reach the size stated on the label in zone 4, where it dies back to the ground every winter and comes back from ground level every spring. An attractive and, so far, hardy zone 4 plant, to be sure, but not nearly as large as some other varieties in the Hydrangea family, and the larger size is what I was wanting when I bought the Twist and Shout....See MoreUser
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