I know. I tried. Villosa, read the Mtcuba study. Stood on my head and turned around and touched the ground. Nothing worked. I started noticing where people posted that had good success. If they were in cold areas and it stayed cold with snow cover that is insulation. They did good. If it was higher zones with more moderate temps they did fine.

As I said I have wild swings. All winter, we go from Spring temps with rain to a zone 3 winter in a matter of 24 hrs. That weather pattern of swing can and has gone on for 4-5months through the winter. With all the rush to market new developed they are a weak plant to begin. It is not strong enough to be put through wild weather swings in any situation.

We tend to have wet, cold weather in the late winter and spring. I had a succession of Heucheras that seemed to melt into nothing sometime between the fall and spring.

Your method looks to be giving you some great results but sounds like a lot of work.

I am not familiar gardening in your climate only know about it through vacation and business trips. But gardening in cold climate is work. Raking leaves in the fall. If you have a rose garden there is prep that is work. Shoveling snow for months. Trust me picking up light weight coir potted plants and laying them on their side in a corner is the easiest thing I have to do in the gardens in my climate.

But everyone tell me I look like I am thirty years younger than my actual age. So I guess I was born for a lot of work. LOL I am working on four acres of land.

We lived in Jersey just long enough when I was young to know how much work is involved with shoveling snow. Glad I don't have that to worry with that here.

Leaves, though, I have in spades. I have a yard full of oaks. I have the rake 3 times. Once when most of the leaves are gone so they don't smother the plants. Again in January once more leaves fall and blow in from the neighbors. One last time in March before all my plants wake up. I use an old shipping bag for our sofa to drag leaves to the compost mountain in the back corner. Upside is plenty of compost!

Shoveling keeps me in shape. I do not mind it if we do not have a winter with snow every day.

You said it looks like a lot of work. You do understand that they stay in the pot and you do not have to plant them every year. You only have to pick up the pot and lay it on the side. The pot in my example is three yrs old. I did add some fresh compost on top and the fertilizer because the soil and leaves had broken down.

So if I'm understanding this, in spring the pots are placed on the surface of the soil and mulch/compost/soil added to make them look like they're actually planted. Then in late fall they're just turned on their side and left in place?

I'm surprised the leaves didn't die out anyway. I always assumed that was automatic due to the freezing temperatures, since I've always found mine to be a mass of dead leaves after the snow melts. I've never had any leaves survive winter, even this past mild winter.

No I remove them from the garden and place them on their side against the garage. Then I pile the leaves on top. You just see a mound of leaves. When I remove the leaves they look fresh and very little dead leaves.

They are evergreen. By protecting the way I am winter storing the leaves/plant the leaves stay intact mostly.

Marquest, this is off topic, but what is the plant with pretty little blue flowers?

Jjka, , the blue flowers belong to Brunnera 'Jack Frost'

Yes that is Jack Frost.

This is such a great idea!