Where are you (nearest big city, state)? Is your garage heated or unheated? Both plants will go dormant but sitting on the floor of an unheated garage may be too cold for them. Is there a location in your yard (vegetable garden maybe?) where you could heel them in?

Not at all too late to plant them in the ground now. You can keep them in the garage if you wish (depending on your location) but much easier to just plant them.

And don't prune them now!

I would either plant them or sink them in the ground pot and all.

just because you dont want to be out there playing in the dirt in the cold .. does not mean an otherwise zone appropriate plant cant be planted ...

welcome to the forums ... it helps in just about every post.. to include big city name.. so we know where you are ....

the garage just complicates unnecessarily ... and im thinking they could just be left outside against the north wall of the house ... so no sun hits a black pot ... or better.. healed in ... unless you have really bad non draining soil.. and let us know if thats the case .... link below

ken

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=healing+in+plants+for+winter&ia=web

Thanks Everyone. I’m in Toronto, Ontario (zone 6). In terms of over wintering outside, should I use the large styrofoam bins to cover them (I see them being sold at Home Depot)?

You can also pull the pots next to the house, but you've got to protect them somehow. Bagged leaves work well for this. I had a big rodgersia in a half-whiskey barrel I used to pull against the wall and surround on three sides *and* the top with bags of fall leaves. In spring, I'd just take the bags of leaves on and off the top as needed. But alas, my inattention did Rodger in -- one year I took the leaves off the top and forgot about it, sure enough he got iced a couple times, and the subsequent freeze-thaw was too much for him. My fault, not the fault of the method.

I still think about him occasionally; he was a spectacular specimen. RIP Rodger.

We were posting at the same time :0p. I don't know about the styrofoam bins, I don't know what they are so can't comment. If you don't have access to leaves, you can buy straw bales, which are re-usable either elsewhere in your garden (e.g. mulch) or next year to store plants again.

Agree with advice given here. In MY zone 6 (admittedly not as far north as Toronto lol!) there's still time to plant. If no so in Toronto, agree with mxk. I do almost exactly the same - have been overwintering pots in my garage for years, sometimes up to 200 pots. I don't recommend that many pots purposely lol - too much work! - but it can be done. Be sure they are dormant, water well, pull in unheated garage out of sunlight (I covered my garage windows with black fabric just for the pots!), throw in some snow if available around February, and then keep an eye on them in spring. I wasn't as attentive as mxk - pretty much when they came out they stayed out, but mine probably came out later because I'm a procrastinator by nature - but I too had very few losses this way.

Additionally, though I wouldn't recommend doing it on purpose, I've had several pots survive repeated winters outside with pretty much no protection other than being against a wall (see my note about procrastination lol). But the key is to keep them dormant till it's time to wake up.

Can't help with the styrofoam, as I've never done it this way.

mxk, Roger was a beauty!

:)

Dee

I am in Toronto. It is a very good time to plant both these shrubs now in Toronto. They are much more likely to survive in the ground than in pots. Both these plants will drop their leaves soon and are winter hardy in Toronto. They don't need sunlight over the winter. You don't need styrofoam bins - they are for tender roses. What kind of hydrangea is it? Hopefully and most likely some type of hardy Hydrangea paniculata, not the more tender Hydrangea macrophylla.

For both plants, just dig a hole just the size of the pot and put them in at the same depth as they are in the pot. Don't follow outdated advice to dig a bigger hole and amend the soil. (It's more work and gives worse results!)

Find a time to do it soon and take advantage of the cloudy weather and rain that's forecast for next week. Your newly planted shrubs will love it.

We haven't even had a hard frost. You still have weeks to plant them.