First year growing carns in earnest. Have some sarrs in a mini bog that gets max of 2" water. 3of the 4 are quite hardy but the 4TH is zone 7-9. I'm wondering if keeping them in a garage over winter will work? Mid-Michigan zone 5. They are in a plastic tub filled with lfs. How much frost or low temp before moving them in?
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dormancy
- Thread starter brian3
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I'm in zone 5 as well, and I usually wait until we have several good solid frosts before I put them away for the winter, usually mid to late November. And yes, even the "fragile" Sarrs.
I'm in Zone 6 and my Zone 7-9 Sarrs stay outside year-round. They're in pots sitting in trays of water now and, come fall, I'll dig a hole on the high edge of the vegetable garden, an inch shallower than the pots, and will set the pots in there. I use loose dirt to fill in around the pots , trying to keep the dirt out of the pots, and begin covering them with fallen leaves, starting with a thin layer and building up from there. 6-8" of leaves seems to be enough, but we haven't dropped below zero in several years.
I used to put a thicker pile of leaves on top - a foot or more - and that was enough for them to survive colder weather, including a windy -8F. FWIW, I believe oak leaves are ideal: they curl up and form a nice fluffy pile, kind of like how a down sleeping bag works. Be careful of maple leaves because seem to mat down, losing their insulating power (think wet down) and possibly suffocating what's underneath. I use a thinner layer of leaves now because I lost my supply of pin oak leaves and worry about putting too thick of a layer of inferior leaves on the Sarrs. That might be OCD ... I don't know.
One other thing: snow is not your friend if trying this. I lost some plants one of the first winters I did this when it was unusually snowy and I figured the snow on top would provide even better insulation. Then I thought about the ice that often forms at the bottom of other snow piles when the snow melts on top on warmer days, the water percolates down, and freezes below. I removed the snow over my Sarrs and some other plants and found my plant pots encased in inches of dense icy snow. It seemed to suffocate some of the plants - I lost a couple Sarrs (I think) and all my Cypripediums. After that, I assembled a lean-to over the plants every winter for a number of years to prevent snow from accumulating on the leaves. I don't bother now because I have fewer plants in a more accessible place and it's easy enough to remove the snow when shoveling next to where the plants are now.
This works for me but I have no idea whether this level of protection is adequate for the colder winters that your plants would have to deal with.
I used to put a thicker pile of leaves on top - a foot or more - and that was enough for them to survive colder weather, including a windy -8F. FWIW, I believe oak leaves are ideal: they curl up and form a nice fluffy pile, kind of like how a down sleeping bag works. Be careful of maple leaves because seem to mat down, losing their insulating power (think wet down) and possibly suffocating what's underneath. I use a thinner layer of leaves now because I lost my supply of pin oak leaves and worry about putting too thick of a layer of inferior leaves on the Sarrs. That might be OCD ... I don't know.
One other thing: snow is not your friend if trying this. I lost some plants one of the first winters I did this when it was unusually snowy and I figured the snow on top would provide even better insulation. Then I thought about the ice that often forms at the bottom of other snow piles when the snow melts on top on warmer days, the water percolates down, and freezes below. I removed the snow over my Sarrs and some other plants and found my plant pots encased in inches of dense icy snow. It seemed to suffocate some of the plants - I lost a couple Sarrs (I think) and all my Cypripediums. After that, I assembled a lean-to over the plants every winter for a number of years to prevent snow from accumulating on the leaves. I don't bother now because I have fewer plants in a more accessible place and it's easy enough to remove the snow when shoveling next to where the plants are now.
This works for me but I have no idea whether this level of protection is adequate for the colder winters that your plants would have to deal with.
Worms do move into the pots, but I haven't found it to be a problem. My sarrs grow in pots of wood chips these days, which might be less affected by worm activity, but I used to grow Sarrs in other media and overwintered them in essentially the same way.