I live on the coast of Maine (at the warmer end of Zone 5, I'd say) and I'm running into a timing dilemma. My new house is still under construction and much of the property is currently a work site. Meanwhile I've got about 3 dozen perennials sitting around in pots waiting to go in the soil, and some others I'm hoping to dig up and divide from my current (rental) residence before the ground freezes, since I'll be long gone before next spring. I'm trying to figure out what to do with all these plants, and when.
I was hoping by now that some little corner of the house site would be cleared of construction equipment and the like, and available to put the perennials in the soil to over-winter, before being moved to their permanent homes in spring. This clearly isn't going to happen anytime in the next few weeks. As things are going, the heavy-duty part of the building process will probably be wrapping up just in time to beat the hard freeze-up that happens around here sometime around mid- to late-November, usually.
The property is mostly wooded, with just a small clearing around the house site itself. So if I get far enough away from the construction area to be safe from roving pickup trucks and the like, I'm off in the woods. I'd like to NOT put the plants there, if I can avoid it, because the soil is poor and rooty, with dense shade that will likely slow down the spring thawing and the plants emerging from dormancy.
So my choices would seem to be:
(a) Grit my teeth and choose some temporary site in the woods, heel the plants in soon, and hope for the best.
(b) Wait out the last weeks of fall, possibly allowing the plants to go dormant in their pots -- these pots, I should mention, are quite generously sized with plenty of room for root mass -- and put them in the ground whenever a safe spot becomes available in the open ground near the house.
I hope I've explained this problem lucidly enough.
Any thoughts or insight would be welcome.
House not done, plants in pots, winter coming...
Do you have a neighbor or friend who could donate a part of their yard to you for a season?
I agree with jj... You never know for sure when the first snow will happen here in the NE
Good Luck
Christine
Kaspian, Short of a neigbor, I'd go with the woods. You can transplant before the leaves come out so shade wouldn't be much of a problem.
Whatever you do, good luck!
Dave
I have frequently heard of leaving the plants in the pots and putting the pots and all in the ground for the winter. This would prevent the plants from being stressed from being moved late and the drying out that would take place if left out in the pots.
That's what I would suggest Al - makes more sense than freaking out the roots. It will also make it easier in the spring, just pull out the pot.
I agree with you Anita ;)
I bought around 150 1 gal. and quart perennials at an auction several years ago. It was very late in the fall and I was not planning on buying plants so I didn't have a place ready for them either. I placed them in a group (still in the pots) at the backend of my yard and covered them with a thick blanket of leaves.(12-18") When spring rolled around I planted them and just about every one survived. They still make up the bulk of many of my beds. Not too bad for a $15 investment.
early_bloomer
This message was edited Oct 23, 2006 11:06 PM
kaspian, I agree, heel them in - in the pots. The majority of my gardening experience was in Maine and I was always finding myself in your situation with the onset of winter. As long as you can dig the holes before the ground freezes, they should be fine and then it's really easy to just flip the pots out of the ground in the spring and plant them in their final destination. Early Bloomer's system might work as well, although Rockport usually doesn't have as much snow cover as the rest of Maine and you'd have to use a generous 'blanket' of leaves. I also remember people who constructed a rough bed with sheets of foam insulation once the plants were completely dormant (around Thanksgiving?) and that worked as well. For the plants you want to "dig up and divide" - you can dig a trench and heel these plants in and then dig them up and divide in the spring. You could divide them this fall, but it's really getting pretty late for your "neck of the woods" and you'd have a better chance of survival if you could wait until spring. By the way, Camden-Rockport was always one of my favorite places to visit - especially Vesper Hill Chapel!
Debbie
I know I'm not going to get all my potted perennials into the ground before the upcoming frost. So, I've confisgated an old rusty wheelbarrel my DH just replaced. (plan is to paint, dress-up and use as a planter) I am putting bubble wrap around the pots, with slits for drainage in botom. The pots will be placed in the wheelbarrel which I'm filling with soil my DH just dug (He's building another wall). Kaspian, I realize a wheelbarrel is inadequate for you, but the bubble wrap may be of help, I read somewhere it is a great insulater. Good luck. Let us know if your successfull, I'll report back on the bubble wrap.
Thanks for all your thoughts about this.
It's funny, after I posted my query, I started thinking independently about the possibility of just leaving them in the pots, maybe heeling the pots themselves into the ground in the woods someplace. That now seems like a very appealing solution, and will certainly minimize the trauma to the poor plants, many of which have been yanked out of their (rented) patch of soil and are just now stabilizing in the pots.
I'm excited about the eventual prospects for this new garden, even though the present-day scene is spectacularly dire, with heavy equipment and construction debris lying everywhere, and a dozen more large evergreen trees, mostly spruces, flagged for clearing to open up a "solar window" on the south side of the house. But it should be beautiful eventually. There are mature oaks and maples between the house site and the road, and a lovely green partly wooded wetland deeper into the property. The house sits at the highest point of a gentle rise, with a distant view of the ocean through the trees (about 1/2 mile away).
The nature of the terrain and of the existing vegetation would accommodate a Japanese-influenced design -- something with which I have very little experience, though it appeals to me more as I get older and less entranced by flashy displays of summer perennials. As a start, I'm trying to be somewhat choosy in the colors and textures I'm importing among the "starter" collection of plants from earlier gardens. My immediate priority, next spring, will be bring in trees and shrubs to form the bones of the design (and to replace those lost to the ravages of construction). I've spent the past few weeks browsing and annotating the Forestfarm catalog, mostly for future reference since the fall planting season is slipping by.
Onward and upward, as we say!
Every year I overwinter some perennials in their pots, without heeling them into the ground. I place the pots on the ground (in a bare space in my rose bed), and once the plants have died back, I cover them and the surrounding 2 feet with a generous amount of straw. They have always come back the next year for me and I am in zone 4.