a plant is a pot is a plant in the pot.. hit the link ... all except the part about it being a hardy plant .... since you dont mention what you have in the pots ....

good luck

ken

Here is a link that might be useful: link

Thank you Ken - the shrubs are hardy Pieris and Leucothoe, and are fairly large specimans (3'tall). I didn't think they should go INSIDE anything, since though not growing, they still need light... don't they? If I didn't have a shady place, I'd use burlap or some type of shade cloth -- I still have a nagging feeling that I should enclose the pots with top soil so keep them from freezing, since if that happens, THAT's what's going to kill the shrubs.

so they are evergreen shrubs ....

i agree dark probably isn't great ....

trust me!!! .. freezing is not the issue .... thawing is the issue .... BIG DIFFERENCE THERE ....

if your soil is still workable... the best thing to do is to sink the pot and all in the ground .. presuming you don't have clay .... so that ma earth will keep the BLACK pot from temp extremes ....

if you have clay .. i would fear a cauldron of water swamping the thing ....

i see no need for shade... other than to keep the BLACK pot out of the sun .. otherwise winter sun is dull enough even for shade plants ....

i see more problems with the cloth collapsing in some freak snow storm and breaking branches.. than in just leaving the top part exposed ...

the issue is JUST THE BLACK POT ... and secondarily .. proper drainage ....

GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!

ken

PS: my main caveat in gardening.. is that we do more harm with too much love versus benign neglect .... don't over think this to your disadvantage ....

If you could, I would remove them from the pot and sink them into the ground anywhere you can for the winter and worry about placing them in spring. Secondly, you can bury them in the pot but don't let the pot puddle and freeze. Slit the sides so water can drain and / or mound dirt above the pot line.

Thank you, Ken, Loretta. Yes, it is clay; horrible heavy red (from shale) clay - our subsoil here in NJ - awful drainage, particularly at the bottom of the property since grade goes gently downhill: I planted winterberries and swamp azaleas down there.

Contractor must have taken all the top soil that may have been there (to sell). This site is a new house (not mine, but client's); & to add insult to injury, the clay (subsoil, for sure) has been compacted by all the heavy equipment that was on site.

I was hired after contractor left; too bad, because I would have insisted he bring in top soil. (Hs says he did!!!) So I hired a local landscaper to do installation but first we brought in several inches of compost for the beds. The rototiller did a poor job of getting it down into the clay, and the area where these BLEs (broad leaf evergreen) are going was not rototilled at all, thus my dilemma...

One solution would be to get landscaper's crew to come back in for an hour and get the shrubs into soil; but we'll need to dig in some compost or top soil & peat moss.

If that doesn't happen, shrubs will be sheltered, against basement wall of house, northeast exposure but a big deck will block most of the direct sun.. anyway it'll only be an hour of morning sun at the most in that spot.
And dumping top soil on containers is akin to heeling them in, at least that's how I see it... also slicing open the sides of the containers is a great idea, Loretta.

I'm happy that I visited the Gardenweb forum today -- haven't been at here a year at least! Thank you both for suggestions, etc. Maybe I'll report back in the spring with results! :o)

It should always be specified that the existing topsoil be stockpiled on site and reapplied at the end of the job. Otherwise most GC's will sell the good stuff for his profit and bring back that colorless rocky stuff that packs down as hard as a rock. Oh well.
Good luck. So far, the weather is on your side but I will say that I tried once keeping a few nice sized evergreens - broadleaf and conifer - in pots in a protected spot against the house over winter and the only plant that made it was a birdsnest spruce. That winter was a very cold one.