Last year when United Airlines gave me a free day at home by screwing our flights up by 36 hours I took on this project:

Earth Angel was languishing in this whiskey barrel. All the other barrel hostas were doing excellently.

I decided she had sunk too deep and dug the whole thing out. Look at those great healthy roots. Ha ha! Voles can’t get in a whiskey barrel.

Here she is back in the barrel. My original barrel mix was 1/3 native soil (also known as sand), 1/3 Black Kow compost, and 1/3 pine bark fines. I didn’t have any of that ready so I used potting mix to fill the barrel. EA took off growing and looked ok the rest of the year.

This spring I get one little eye with tiny leaves and ALL of those roots are rotten. It wouldn’t be so bad except I think I used potting soil in the last ten hostas I put in voleproof stainless steel mesh bags. Don’t anybody take any advice from me. It’s not like there haven’t been tons of posts about the dangers of potting mix. I am obviously uncoachable and need to learn the hard way!

Keep us updated on how the others do as they come up (or don't)! Things are still cold here and pips are just starting. I noticed soil in the pots has settled quite a bit. I have an 'Earth Angel' in a large pot which seems to be coming up well. Many of the pots have settled/compacted, some quite a bit. I have some potting mix in the mixture.....along with pine bark, hardwood bark, yard compost, a little perlite, eye of newt.....

zkathy -- You mentioned using vole-proof stainless mesh bags. Did those help or not make any difference? I bought some from Amazon, thinking they sounded like a great idea, but haven't used them yet. Should I bother??

Kathy, it is so sad to not have Earth Angel come back even better after all that work. How had you overwintered the barrel?

Woodnative , I was so full of my own tale of woe that I missed yours about your losses to voles and your success with totally frozen pots! What did you do about the voles after you figured out your losses? How have you been managing them since then? It was the eye of newt that I forgot! No wonder!

newhostalady, I ignore my barrels all winter, the other five with similar exposure are doing fine.

Roxanna, the jury is still out on the bags. I just bought a big role of the mesh to try to fashion a more Hosta friendly bag. Woodnatives losses in pots has me worried.

What I have learned is that having success with pots outdoors doesn't mean you will be successful each year. It's really what you do with your pots that makes the difference. So you can have a reasonable winter and all is fine, but when the weather is extreme or out of the ordinary, losses can happen. Woodnative, if you don't want to tip your pots, I would add soil to the top of the pot to discourage water going into the pot. Of course, this soil would have to be removed in the early spring when it is time for the hostas to emerge.

Kathy, so you say you used straight potting mix for the Earth Angel in the barrel and also used this mix for your vole mesh bags. But the vole mesh bags are in the ground, right? And if so, they should be fine. It is the barrel, which would be considered a pot, that the trouble occurred---just not enough drainage for a pot.

Because of that these pot filled to the brim with water and then froze solid.

===>>>> not sure i would call your winter temperate .. per your title ...

roots need air.. all year long ... the theory is.. once the pot froze solid ... and then filled with water ... the roots lacked air ... and most likely.. it led to root rot in spring ...

ken

Ken agreed which is why i am surprised everyone seems to have survived this winter. Perhaps one or two exceptions but most did fine. I expected most to have died but I have been very pleasantly survived.

when i moved the 1650 pots ... over winter ... the blue ones seemed most affected ... those with heavy ..... tokudama and sieboldiana background .... especially those hard toward those species ... in other words.. not further out the genetic tree towards hybrids .....

ken

btw ... this is why we usually recommend.. in snow/freeze country/ground freeze areas ... to just tip the pots on their sides ... so water wont accumulate ...

im adding all this for those who might not know ... ken