Do you move your pots for the winter?

[OrchidFan]

Hello

This is the first year I've had a garden so steep learning curve.

I have a few things that say they are hardy to -3 and -5.

I live in Scotland.

Should I move things indoors or into the shed? I don't have a greenhouse.

Thanks

Depending on what you’re growing, you can move to a greenhouse, indoors, shed, cover with fabric and plastic or use an indoor growing system

I didn't see that this was in gardening and thought you meant pots and pans and thought I was missing something that I was supposed to be doing 🤣

@youalright haha yeah you slattern! Your neighbours have been talking about your slovenly pots and pans habits!

I felt the same when I saw someone write paragraphs on here about "high dusting" which turned out to be yet another thing I didn't know was a thing! (People dust their walls?!)

What's in the pots? I am in milder climate and more worried about the wet than freezing temps. Most of things I keep overwinter get cut down in late autumn and moved to a sheltered south-facing corner of the garden. I will throw the chopped up branches from our christmas tree on top of the pots for extra protection.

🤣🤣

In my pots I have all sorts of random things I bought from the garden centre -
lavender, pine (which currently looks dead), all sorts of random flowering things with latin names, herbs.

Lavender should be hardy. You may want to prune it before winter (look up how on the RHS website).
Pine - hardy, but if the needles are entirely brown you didn't water it enough.

Give us some herb and Latin names? Label photos is fine. There is no one size fits all answer to your question.

I have one plant in a pot that can’t survive frost and move it inside. The rest are ok outside but I have a very sheltered London garden.

get a max-min thermometer and keep an eye on the temperature in your garden. See if it tends to be above or below the weather forecast. Then you will have more idea of how vulnerable things are.

The only pots I put in the garage are a lemon tree and dahlias. Everything else stays out

No. We have those ‘Heritage Garden Pottery’ pots and we leave them outside. I think a big one with a twisted bay did crack last winter, but that was the only one out of about 8.

We have a ginormous olive tree in a pot (cost a LOT) and I do nothing with that either. It jettisons every leaf and looks dead by spring, but always recovers. Bizarrely, an olive tree from Costco which cost less than £100, absolutely thrives through the winter and that one is at the bottom of the garden and very exposed.

Do you keep your dahlias in a pot? I lift the tuber and store in newspaper then replant in spring but if there’s a less faffy way, I’m all ears!! I left one in the ground last year with a layer of mulch which grew again fine but it was pretty mild.

Wet kills more plants than the cold. Move pots up against a fence or wall, or stand them on bricks or pot feet to allow water to drain away.

Am also in Scotland. I group my pots together and put against a house wall/south facing sunny spot or underneath my garden table. I wouldn’t put them in a shed because they still need light. Or you could buy one of those mini plastic greenhouses on Amazon and congregate them in there.

Not indoors but move them on the decking to near the house so they should be more sheltered and warmer.

Agree with this. Anything small you're especially keen to keep you could make a sort of cloche out of a 5l water bottle with the base cut off, and cover the plant with it.

Also don't forget terracotta pots may crack if the water in them freezes.

I sometimes take the dahlias soil and all out the pot and put in a plastic pot in the shed if the compost is already fairly dry - otherwise I'll take them out and dry them and then store in shed.

It's too clay and wet where I am to leave them in the ground - they just rot.

As far as my pots go - some things like begonias I'll put in the shed. Everything else takes it's chances - I have a lot of pots. Aeoniums go in the greenhouse to keep them dry - but if I didn't have the greenhouse I'd just put them under the eaves.