Bundle up!

With snow in the forecast and December right around the bend, it’s time to finish up winter preparations. Container plantings are my focus this week. I tossed pots of flowering annuals in the compost pile weeks ago, but I’ve enjoyed watching the hydrangeas and butterfly bushes as they prepare for winter. Once green leaves turned yellow, red, and a deep, silky shade of burgundy and the hydrangea flowers took on a lovely tawny color. Unwilling to miss this exhibit of nature’s beauty, I left the containers in place until the plants are now leafless sticks.

If left outside during Iowa’s brutal winter, the roots of these containerized plants will freeze and the stems will likely succumb to the drying winter winds. An insulating blanket of soil and snow buffer the temperature extremes for shrubs planted in the garden. An unheated, insulated garage will do the same for shrubs in containers.

I will water my containers well and then move them to the garage. Steer clear from storing woody plants in a heated space. The heat may promote unwanted midwinter growth. Optimally, the storage space should be consistently cool with temperatures ranging from the upper 20s to low 40s.

If you don’t have a suitable space to store your shrubs over winter, use the garden. Simply dig a hole in the garden and plant the shrub and pot. Place soil around the pot as if you were planting it. The soil will protect the roots from temperature extremes.