big city name plz.. z5 is about half the US and wildly divergent..

in fact.. part had ground freeze.. and part doesnt.. and that is one key to over wintering ..

where are you.. and does your ground freeze ..

also.. what media do you plan to use you your pots ..and how big of pots..

and congrats on starting the project with these questions.. and not when you are panicking next november ...

oh.. and what hosta.. some of the SMALL as you say .. are hard to get to live.. pot or not.. so dont start with the hard ones ....

ken

I have a fire island in a pot in Al's gritty mix on our patio in the northern Chicago suburbs, Z5. I did not do anything over the winter and left the pot on the patio. This past spring it came back just fine.

That's what I do, but I'm in Texas and the ground doesn't freeze. The pots freeze, but they don't stay frozen. It will be 20 degrees one night and 60 degrees the next day.

The problem is that a upright plant can thaw on the top, but not in the bottom. That creates a perfect place for rot.

I can't tell you what to do in zone 5, so I'm not going to try.

bkay

• I am in zone 6a, SW Michigan. We get long freezing weather and lots of snow. I have several hostas in pots from seedlings, small ones and larger ones. I leave them all outside all winter and cover them with about 12 inches of chopped leaves. In the spring and heavy frosts are past I just rake all the leaves off . Sometimes if a late heavy frost comes I might cover them with a tarp or whatever I have handy. I seldom loose any, even the tiny seedlings.
• In the gtound, the small ones have a tendency to heave and need to be replanted.

Thanks to you all; this was very helpful. I live halfway between Indy and Chicago in W.Lafayette IN. We live in the woods, so hosta is pretty much it for us, besides woodland flowers. We've had an unusually warm winter with little snow. My plan is to either put the hosta in ceramic pots underneath our deck, or possibly bring them into garage after the foliage is spent. SHould I take them out after frost date? Do I need to think about water while overwintering?

learn about pot in pot.. and take the inner pot and plant out for winter.. and store your expensive ceramic pots appropriately ...

you didnt answer if your ground froze .. ergo.. the pots will freeze ..

all you have to do.. is lay a plastic pot on its side.. in full shade .. and hosta will winter over easily .. no winer sun on a black pot.. to thaw the root mass ...

its late winter ... early spring thaws.. snow melt and rain.. in the top of a frozen pot.. that will actually kill the hosta in early spring.. rather than winter.. root rot in cold damp soggy media ....

even better if they end up under snow cover all winter ...

i would just stack then up against the north side of the house... and stand them up when you see actual growth starting ... and hope its close to last frost/freeze date ...

ken

You are making too much work for yourself! The easiest and probably most reliable way to overwinter hosta successfully would be to take them out of the container they are growing in, and plant them (heel them in) temporarily IN THE GROUND outdoors in a shaded spot somewhere on your property. Because they are not anchored into the soil with new roots mulch them and keep an eye on them overwinter to make sure they are not heaving out of the soil. If they pop out of the ground just push them back into the soil. You won't need to water them, put them into pots under your deck, or even have to think about them much over the winter. Keeping anything that is a perennial in pots overwinter outdoors is tempting fate. I lost 100s of potted perennials years ago after the temperature was in the teens for weeks and then it rained one day - the water froze around the crowns of the plants and killed all of them. You never know what the winter weather will be from year to year!

Good luck - and enjoy your hostas!!

Lots of things that should grow well for you with hostas. Astilbe, ferns, uvularia, hellebore…just to get you outside that box. 😊

I'm in z5 and I do what Jeb describes... at the end of the growing season I remove my hostas from their pots and plunge them in the vegetable garden for the winter. I don't do anything else special. I don't dig them up for potting in spring until they start growing on their own.

Unpotting and repotting wont work for me….some of my potted hosta are too big for that treatment and I have no room in my garden beds to place them. From my point of view too much unnecessary work. I guess Eleanor will have to decide what will work for her.

I don’t water my potted hosta over the winter and usually bring them out in April here when temps have consistently warmed.

Sherry

Thanks again for replies. I like the idea of putting in the ground for winter. This winter only the very top layer of soil has frozen; below about an inch it is still friable. Other years it gets, and stays, quite cold.

I also live in Zone 5 in Colorado. I didn't do well with leaving them in the pots for the winter. So I put mine in my veggie raised bed in the winter. Cover them with some leaves (which tend to blow off at some point) and then put them back in pots in the Spring when I see new growth.

My raised bed is pretty deep and the soil inside sits well below the top so there is a bit of a wind break. It's a lot easier to dig in here than the ground.

We live in the woods, so hosta is pretty much it for us, besides woodland flowers.

Not so. Actually, there is quite a range of plants that would grow in your woods: ferns, Brunnera, Pulmonaria, Trilliums, Jack in the Pulpit, Cimicifuga, Uvularia, Solomon's Seal, False Solomon's Seal, Hellebores, Ajugas, Liriope, Jacob's Ladder--and many more.

Yes, we have many of those woodland plants, some of them growing wild. I plan to add more wildflowers in a sorta-sunny spot my hubby created for me, to attract bees and hummingbirds. I;ve never been able to get hellebore to grow, though-- I think our soil is too clayey. I have tried mowing leaves and amending soil with peat and manure, but no luck.

Clay shouldn't bother hellebores. Something else must be bothering them.

I'd love to have a veggie garden, but I don't have enough sun. But I do bury some of my pots in the garden to overwinter. If the perennial is in a plastic pot, no need to unpot it. I never unpot the plants I bury overwinter. You just have to make sure you don't leave a depression around the plant that could fill up with water and ice. So just top up the pot with your media or bark. Then in spring when you remove the pot from the soil, also remove the excess soil.

Peat is the last thing you want for clay soil--it holds moisture.