Winter ready

We are all now preparing our gardens, sowings and seedlings for the winter. I already provided a few easy solutions for storing various pots in a previous post, available on the Germination page: How to prepare your sowings and potted seedlings for the winter.

I just took few more pictures while arranging my pots with seedlings, sowings and leftover potted plants in the past days. I do not longer use a cold frame, so back to the basics: ‘planting’ the pots in the ground and/or bunching them together and later cover with a fleece/tarp. It is the best, easy method to provide the cold/moist stratification required by various species. Easy-peasy, everyone has some space in the garden between perennials and shrubs that can be used this way: sown this fall Diphylleia, Daphne mezereum and few others (species that require cold/moist stratification), pots with Hepatica and Helleborus seedlings, young, potted Thalictrum petaloideum planted for the winter.

New for this fall, I am using a tall container that was filled with annuals during the season, to ‘plant’ some old and new sowings little pots. While cleaning away the petunias and others, the large empty space was begging for few pots to be buried in it. Being above the ground I don’t know how it will work but worth to give it a try .

We’ll see how it goes.