Overwintering plants

I have been researching overwintering my container plants online. My plan is to put them in my unheated garage with bubblewrap around the pots and a 120 watt plant light overhead. I won't cut back any of the foliage and water perhaps once a month. I have dahlias, passion flower, canna, fuchias, geraniums and heliotrope. They are all lush and gorgeous and I don't want to lose them. Desperate for advice from more experienced gardeners. Thanks!

Sounds like a good plan to me. Good luck

Hi - I've kept tropicals in the house & under a lighting system, mainly because my garage gets too cold: some winters the cat's water bowl is frozen solid. (Sammamish is the plateau area north of Issaquah, East of Lake Sammamish - so not far from you at all. We generally are 5 - 8° hotter in the summer & 8-10° colder than Seattle.)
I don't dig my Dahlias or Gladiolus or Cannas - but my soil drains well & the plants thrive. My understanding is that you can put them in an unheated garage, but research a little to find out the minimum temperature range for what you've listed. Wrapping them is a great idea - the other thing I have done with success was to keep some on a warming mat.

Thanks Katye for your suggestions--I think I will bring my plants inside the house and use my plant light there. I'll also look into getting a warming mat for my canna--it is too large to keep indoors.

I am new here. Have been reading on Dave's for a few yrs. though. We have a full basement, and have some nice window wells that are deep. Hubby has made covers out of green fiberglass that goes over the top of them. We put the geraniums in them. Have done so for 10 years, and they come out fine. In early spring we start to water them again. Hanging basket fushias we used to dig a huge hole in the garden, about 4 ft. deep and put the fushia, basket & all in, and we would cover this all up with gathered oak leaves. Never lost a fushia either. A few plants in pots I place close to the house, under the shrubs, and they get protected. I don't dig the dahlias, (back injury), we cut off the frosted branches, and then cover the dahlia plot up with a sheet of black plastic, and weight that down with pots of soil. Have done that for over 6 years now. The dahlias in the flower beds that are not in a big plot together, I remove frosted branches, and cover up the dahlia clump with a large plastic bucket or pot and weight that down also. In spring, I dig up what can be dug, and seperate them. Hope that this helps some.
Darlene

thanks darlene, i've been wondering if I should dig up my dahlia. this will help me make sure they make it to the spring ready to grow without the backbreaking work!

I've never dug up my dahlias and they have all come back...and prolifically so! I think it must be because they are near the house and are covered in a little extra mulch? I just crop them back to the ground.

Last year I neglected covering my Fatsia japonica and it did suffer from the late spring freeze. Will need to remember to cover it this winter.

I just put my geraniums pots on the front porch, mulch them good, and they have come thru all the hard freezes we have had the past few years.
I do the same with the fushias, just mulch them good, both in the ground and their pots. Put the pots in a fairly protected place. You are not to cut back the foliage of the fushias tho until the spring. Is to protect them. I didn't do that last winter since I had the straggly look of them and they did suffer a bit from the long freezing weather we did have. It took them a long time to finally get growing this season.
As for the dahlias, I leave most of mine in raised beds to overwinter with a huge mulch pile over them. Like 4-5" high. I do try to cover their large hole in the stalk since water/rain can get into the tuber and rot it tho.
But here in the NW, it is really milder than the Midwest or East tho. We can overwinter a lot of plants by just mulching them.
This is just my 2 cents worth and experience. You learn by trial and error on what works in your area.
Carol

Passion flower seems to survive just fine here over the winter. I've only killed them by digging them up, never by leaving them in the ground. I plan to leave the cannas in the ground, too, just mulching them good to protect from frost. The geraniums (pelargoniums), I always dig, cut back a bit, and put them in a long windowbox with some soil over the roots, by a window in the garage. I give a little water when the soil gets really, really dry. They just need protecting from frost. When they start leaving out in the spring, I take them out and pot them.
Heliotrope is a bit more tender. I'd like to try to save mine, too. I'm going to put it with the geraniums and hope for the best.
fuschia baskets just go into the garage, too, and I cut them back when they start leaving out in the spring, cutting them back only to where the green leaves begin. The only ones I've ever lost are those that were outside exposed to all of the weather.
If you want to dig your cannas, I've been told to rinse them off, let them dry well, and store them in peat moss, but in a container that will breathe. I stored some in the greenhouse last year to my detriment.

Has anyone dug up & brought in Callibrachoa? I have read conflicting info about this. Mine have been looking so good for the past 3 weeks, I hate to lose them.
I can't put things in my garage: no room and gets cold enough to freeze the large container of water for the animals.
Cannas & Dahlias do fine for me in the ground - we'll see how the Passiflora does outside this year.
I'm just not ready to embrace cold temperatures...

I have left Million Bells in both the ground and pots. They have done fine in both. But last nasty winter with the old freezing weather, I lost one of my favorite tho. I had mulched it good but..............
So if you put it in a good place and mulch it good, it will be fine. But you never know with them, I have found out.

I bring in my under zoners and put them in my sun room. It is heated and sometimes quite dry. I use gas heat, and mostly wood heat. The relative humidity is low often. I then use a plastic tarp clear that has pans of water under it to hydrate my sensitive ones when the heat is on. I keep the plants with rocks and pans with water to evaporat and condense to create the moisture that is needed for the relative humidity.

This year I'm thinking I will store some stuff in the attic. It's cold, but won't freeze, and I can hook up a light if I need to. It might be the perfect place for tender bulbs like EE's.

I grow my plants mostly in containers. I have an unheated shed that I overwinter my tender plants in. It has many florescent lights on timers, many shelves, a cement floor and the walls and ceiling have been insulated. I leave the door open a crack for air circulation. I water about once a month throughout the winter. Some of my plants go completely dormant, others stay green or continue growing though they slow way down. I've even had some that bloomed in winter. I site the most tender of the plants away from the door and on a shelf as the cement floor can get very cold. I've had great success wintering my tender and tropicals this way. My dahlias and cannas (also grown in containers) are moved under an evergreen tree to give them shelter. I don't mulch them but group them closely together. All have come through many winters this way beautifully.
Here is a photo showing part of my growroom.

Question about cannas:
This is first year when i am growing them, i read that i can leave them in soil, but i need to move them to new bed, and I want to redo area where they are growing right now.
I digged them out yesterday and now don't know what wil be better to keep them in unheated garage (I can put them in peat moss after they dry) or plant them right now in their new place.

Any ideas?