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Overwintering in Garden Shed

9 years ago

My kids gave me a Rubbermaid shed for my birthday. I have a plant, maybe 2, that if I'm going to be able to have in Spring, I'll need to take inside. There are 13 people living in this house, so you can probably figure out there is no room in the garage. There is no electricity to this shed, so no heat source is available. Is the shed an option for overwintering? Trying to post pictures, but they won't upload.

Comments (6)

  • 9 years ago

    Thanks, Dawn. For sure, my Morning Glory Bush/Tree. Not sure if there will be anything else going in there. I planted it in a concrete pot. It's pretty tall now, but not as tall as I thought it would be near end of season. I have a frost blanket somewhere. I'm still moving my gardening things out of the garage into my shed. Haven't found everything yet. So glad to have it so everything can be in one central place.

  • 9 years ago

    I was finally able to post pics on another post, so maybe it will let me now.

    I'm so not done with this yet. I'm going to add a peg board with hooks to better organize tools.

  • 9 years ago

    Wow that Is neat and tidy!!! Wished mine looked like that.

    I have a wooden shed with no insulation and I killed a couple plants by leaving them out there.

    Good luck.


  • 9 years ago

    Hahaha! It is neat and tidy in this pic because I hadn't actually used it yet. This was after it had just been set up. Thanks for the advice.

  • 9 years ago

    You probably could overwinter your bush morning glory in there, but it depends on which bush morning glory you have. Most of them are only cold hardy to zone 9, but I think they could survive in the shed if dormant and if wrapped well and kept warm. You could wrap the container with heavy blankets or something to keep it warmer, or less cold. I'd also put a thermometer out there in the shed to keep an eye on how cold it gets at night. The problem with overwintering anything in a container is that it lacks the insulation of being in the ground. So, if you are in zone 7 in OK, then anything in a pot aboveground is considered to be overwintering in zone 6 conditions. You wouldn't want to keep the growing medium too wet or the roots could rot. You'd want it mostly dry with just a tiny bit of moisture.

    I routinely overwinter brugmansias, which have about the same cold hardiness as bush morning glories---so need zone 9 conditions in general---in my unheated greenhouse. Depending on what time of the day I close the greenhouse doors in winter to hold in the heat and depending on how much sunlight is available during the day, I can keep the brugmansias leafed out and in bloom most of the time until at least January. By January, the nights inside the greenhouse are pretty much just as cold as the night-time lows outside the greenhouse, so the brugs drop their leaves and flowers and go dormant. They survived winters in the garage (unheated but well-insulated) for about a decade before we even built the greenhouse, but one key is that they need to be pretty dry. They basically die back to the ground and sit there dormant in dry, soil-less mix, so that they aren't wet enough to rot.

    If you track the overnight low temperatures in your shed and they are dropping below maybe 45, then you'd need to move the bush morning glory indoors until the night time lows are warming up more. It wouldn't have to be in a situation where it gets light....just in a place where it stays warm.

    Some people overwinter tropical plants by putting them inside a cold frame inside a shed or greenhouse. That might work for your bush morning glory, but I haven't tried it.

    Dawn