POT UP FOR WINTER???

It will be 34 degree tonight and I think it will be downhill from then on. Have several to plant but am afraid it is too late to establish before hard freeze. Is it possible to pot them up and just add a little bone meal and set near a window or put downstairs in a cool dark room until spring?  HELP

If left outside, they do need the cold, sink the pot in the ground. A warm place isn't a good idea. Maybe some other cold weather people can help.

I wouldn't plant outside this late. My last "safe" planting date for bearded irises is Aug. 15, and I'm a half-zone warmer than you. If I plant after Aug. 15, I risk losing irises over the first winter. The longer I plant after that date, the more first year losses I suffer.

When I have received irises too late for planting, I pot them and overwinter them under lights or in sunny windows indoors. The foliage will grow thin and floppy, irises indoors attract aphids like magnets, and you probably won't get bloom next spring, but at least they should survive so that you can plant them out next year. If you don't want to risk possibly losing them this winter, I suggest you overwinter them indoors. Oh, but skip the bone meal and water them lightly.

Laurie

thanks for the info. I think i'll pot them and put in the window. I won't put any bone meal either.I wonder Irisma if I put them in the coldest dark part of the basement mid Jan. then plant out about may-june if that would help. Or would it possibly help later to put them in the fridge awhile before planting out.

Cool basement 0k--not fridge. Laurie is colder so follow here. We never bring them inside in the winter, but we do bury pots & they seem to come through.

I would much rather see them in a basement than a window because of the aphids.

D

OK. i know what to do now.LOL. Take a bath, have some tea, check more forums, go to bed. I will rest better tonight as have been so worried. thank you both

Irises need at least 6 weeks to establish a root system to make it through the cold winter months, so yes pot them up, I use compost with no bone meal, then put in a sunny window, Good Luck

I pot everything for a year when it is new no matter where it comes from
I would put them in the ground as IrisMA suggest and mulch over. with leaves or pine needles. When I lived in MT for a short while seemed they had hard freezes that then wormed for a short duration just before snow and ice started.
(missoula area)

problem here is we get such cold drying winds off the mountains. Often with no snow cover for insulation. We are avid mulchers and even then have problems sometimes. I think i will try a few outside that are not real expensive or fabulous and see how they do vs inside. Maybe I will have a big thread for us all in the spring. Thanks for all the great ideas .

Hello rebloomnut... Here's a link to your closest AIS Society Affiliate. They're out of Missoula MT. Not sure how the weather there differs from yours, but you may be able to get in touch with some locals that can share their experiences. http://www.missoulairis.com/

Good Luck, Dan

zacattack, thanks for the link. will try it tomorrow

I would pot them, put them against the south foundation. Maybe cover with plastic or mulch heavily with straw for protection. I'm glad we aren't freezing yet!! Not proud of it , but wintered one year buys in an open cold frame till spring. Even had them blooming in pots!!

In this climate we usually sink the pots in the ground; likewise with boxes of seeds.

Question: Why plant them in pots and then bury them in the ground, that doesn't make any sense to me why not just put them in the ground in the first place unless you don't have a bed ready or you have sitting water in which case I wouldn't be planting them there anyway.

The pots seemed to be because a bed had to get ready--you can move them around if necessary. Putting pots in the ground instead of leaving them above ground prevents the root from freezing.

My understanding for putting in pots and burying pot and all after normal planting season, is the problem we have in the midwest with freezing and thawing which causes heaving. If the roots don't have enough time to grow and station themselves, they could be heaved out of the ground and freeze during one of the freeze thaw cycles.

I have some iris in rather large pots that will not have a permanent home until
next year. Rather than dig the pots into the ground, can they be kept in an
unheated garage since they should be dormant this winter anyway? They are
growing and increasing in the pots just the same as if they were planted
permanently.

Even though you are in 5b I still think that they sould be outside. Two reasons, 1 allows snow cover for watering and sunlight becasue even with short leaves they will continue to take up nutrients from the sunlight which is why I do not cut back in fall

I don't have room for anymore beds and ended up planting quite a few iris from fall 2007 in containers and put them out back on the patio all winter. More than half of them bloomed and the ones that didn't bloom increased. I used like a 20" pot that maybe holds 2 gallons or so of soil and they all seem to be doing fine. I'm working this fall on removing a bunch of cannas and turning it into a new iris bed.

You're in a colder zone than I am but if you do plant them in containers and don't want to sink them in the soil, I would try to nestle the containers together outside and maybe cover them with some fall leaves for the winter to act as insulation in the event of snow or tuck the pots in close to the house or a shed which will sometimes act as a sort of micro climate so nothing freezes solid.

We had a lot of -10F days about 15 years ago but the climate has warmed
enough that now 0 to -5 for a few days is the norm. I would think a month
or so in a garage would not hurt them as long as they were not watered
too much. They should be dormant December to early February anyway
and are not going to grow. They are not critical plants so losing them
would not make a whole lot of difference. They are mainly backup sets
of oldies which I have others planted in beds.

The problem with overwintering plants in pots in a cold winter zone is that pots are vulnerable to big temp swings, causing repeated freezing and thawing of potted soil. That is deadly to many plants, including irises. That is also why it is recommended to bury pots up to the rims. The surrounding soil maintains steady temp and minimizes freeze/thaw action.

If your garage maintains a steady temp, and you can keep your pots away from windows and sun exposure, your irises might be OK in there. Last year I overwintered most of my beardless irises and a couple of peonies in pots unburied outdoors. I pushed all of the pots as close together as possible in a relatively protected part of my side yard, then corralled them snugly with hay bales. Then I covered them with about 6" of whole oak leaves and placed a couple of glass storm doors over the top. They all survived the winter. I've never tried that sort of thing with beardeds, though, and they are a lot more vulnerable to rot than the beardless.

Laurie

I think I will take your advice in burying the pots. I have an uncommitted area
in the shady back yard to put them over winter. I will wait until the nighttime
temps drop below freezing before I bury the pots. I had a bad experience from
trying to bury a pot with a special iris too early. It became water logged from
the fall rain and the pot did not drain properly. Needless to say, the iris did not
survive.

Couldn't you just pot them up and put them in a wheel barrel and set them outside during the day when it is warm and wheel the cart in the gargage at night when it is cold? Then after about 6 weeks leave them outside?

The roots can freeze if left outside unprotected, even in the garage if freezing.