They're normally found along the waterside and swamps, I wouldn't worry about drainage. If they're hardy there, you can sink the pots as you describe. You may (depending on your locale) wish to protect them from wind.

what zone is your corner of NJ ... we can rule out winter ground freeze???

the usual winter issue is too much water in a pot with a dormant plant in it ...

i might just place them against the north side of the house ... to keep them out of sun ... and tip them over so water doesnt accumulate and rot the roots ... if there is a significant eave.. you might not even need to tip them over ....

beyond water.. we dont want black pots heating in mid winter warm spells.. ergo.. north side and full winter shade ... dont let those roots wake up ... and then go dormant again... plants do have a sense of humor about going in and out of dormancy during winter ...

ken

Better to not allow roots to freeze, especially on young plants. At the least you can cause physiological drought to the leaves because they can't uptake water. Then the roots can be killed if they get to frozen.

You can put them against your south wall and mulch heavily around the pots, water well 1st. Personally I would bring them in a cold garage at least during extreme cold.

By the way, Bracken's are as common as house flies.

it's basically zone 6.5.

Ground DOES freeze

I have a large north-facing porch I can put them under is best? But they won't get any sun but as mentioned maybe best they just stay sleeping.

Can also put them in garage, or a warmer attic above the garage.

Burying is the worst idea?

The soil is that loose potting type mix that will take in a lot of water but if I bury the pots I'd put denser more clay-like soil over top if suggested, then lots of mulch.

I want to do this like , now,

I'm pretty sure I'm going to plant them in the pots close together in the vegetable garden which has plenty of open slots from where there's nothing currently (I still have some chard, parsley, etc in other spots)

Then insulate with plenty straw I picked up a bail someone was throwing out at the curb. Might also grab some leaf bags at curbs and mulch them a bit with the mower so they become finer and insualte better and stay-put better. And put some the more clay-like garden soil over the potting soil.

the garden is as about as sunny of an area it can be, on the south facing side of house but there's a section also around the corner on the East side which gets less sun and also blocks some wind but either way I think I'm going to make a short wall aroudn it all with some scrap plywood.

Maybe I'll put a few in the attic above the garage too and make sure to water them just a bit now and then.

Then in Spring I'm going to plant them a bit later maybe just to make sure they're showing signs of growing and life before I bother planting them in their final destination to make sure they actually made it through winter.

I grow lots of hardy cactus and out of habit said put them against your south wall. Frozen leaves on a sunny winter day will demolish the leaves. For broadleaf evergreens I use an eastern exposure with some shade and protection from north winds. Mulch heavily and spray leaves and stems with an antidessicant like Wilt-Pruf.

In zone 7 New Jersey, a north exposure might be ok but here in zone 6, I worry about prolonged frozen Magnolias. Don't know so in coldest weather, I bring them in a cold garage.

would it have been better to put them in a windowless cold (freezing) garage most of the winter but maybe bring them outside on warmer days maybe two or 3 times a week?

How 'bout a warmer attic with no sunlight?

I hope I didn't make it worse than just leaving them outside. I had them under a porch for about a week, and then today I dug a pit (there's like 18 total 3 gallon pots of these) and packed them closely in the pit still in the pots and packed straw/leaves between then and a good amount over them and did bury some of the 'trunks' of these 18 innch starters.

Will the mulch/straw around the trunks rot them out or help insualte as long as once it gets warmer I remove it?

When it rains though now it's like they'll be in a pool that will freeze!

Heat does come from the ground and mulch/straw insulates and what insulation does is it stops heat from passing through it, so actually all the straw I packed between each pot is blocking ground heat from reaching the tops of the pots but I'm hoping it'll at least soak up lighter rains/snow and less likely to cause a pool affect on the bottoms.

I have them on the east side of the house about 2 feet from the house and they're near a fence corner so not much wind but I still might put a scrap plywood wall around them.

I'd really like to just use some scrap 2x4s and plywood and make a sorta shed over them that I can remove the plywood roof on warmer days, to keep it from pooling, is that the best idea or basically same as keeping them in the window-less garage which is easier?

I know some people keep banana trees, curry trees etc in their window-less garages all winter and they do fine but not sure if these should get more sunlight, more than just bringing them all out on the driveway once a week or so during warmer hours.

please advise thank you.

I do know if garage-kept to slowly introduce them to the outside in Spring so they don't get too shocked but the garage does freeze anyway (had a copper plumbing line crack a few years ago).

bump