winterizing containers?

[weldnfab]

[align=left]I am relatively new to container gardening.... my question is regarding whether or not sweet williams/iris's/smaller maples/barberry can survive winter in smaller containers?*.... most are in 4-6" pots at this time, utilizing an extremely loamy soil mix,my *intenion is to use them next season and am curious as to whether or not any special precautions should be taken....*west coast of *Michigan...zone 5, gets fairly cold some years..... HELP?[/align]

[Newt]

Hi Weldnfab,

I had a similar situation a while ago when we renovated the entire yard.* I dug up 500 plants and had to store them over the winter.* I'm in zone 7 in Maryland.* I sunk the pots into the soil up to their rims and mulched to the inner edge of the pots.* I found that I only lost about 10 plants and most of those were the smaller pots as you've described.*

I would suggest you upgrade to one gallon pots in early September if at all possible.* Then sink the pots into the ground up to their rims for the winter.* Mulch the entire bed well, especially after a hard frost.* The idea is to make sure the ground around the pots doesn't freeze and thaw and freeze again.* You'll want to have the soil level at or very close to the top rim of the pots.* Otherwise too much water from melting snow can collect and freeze and thaw and freeze again around the crown of the plants.* In the spring you can remove the mulch and pull the pots.

Newt