overwintering potted grasses

eelya1 · Post by **eelya1** » Oct 19, 2004 5:09 pm

thinkin' of buying some "1 gal" grasses at 75% off.

but i don't want to plant them till next year.
wondering if i could over winter them in my unheated pole barn?

kHT · Post by **kHT** » Oct 25, 2004 10:47 pm

Eric, if it doesn't freeze I would think you would be okay. We did the straw bails around some potted grass one year and they all made it.

LucyGoose · Post by **LucyGoose** » Sep 21, 2006 8:36 pm

Hi eelya1!!

One year I had grasses that I didn't get planted and I over wintered them in my unheated, unattached garage and they did fine......The place that I got them, told me to water them a couple times during the winter because they were soooo big and root bound......I did......

Good Luck!!!

Gardentoad · Post by **Gardentoad** » Sep 21, 2006 10:07 pm

I left some miscanthus, in 1 gallon pots sitting on the ground with nothing around them and they survived. i had 4 pots together just against a privacy fence. Miscanthus is tough. They were not as nice of a clump that summer as the ones that got planted in the fall.

Could you put them in bigger pots for the winter if they are rootbound? I've read that you shouldn't divide grasses in the fall but that is because the fresh cut roots will rot. Just planting them in the fall would be okay as the cuts from being divided when it was potted have healed.

Linda P · Post by **Linda P** » Sep 22, 2006 8:03 am

Eric, I haven't tried to overwinter in pots myself, but there's a big grass nursery just down the road from me, and they do it all the time. I think they move them in to an unheated greenhouse. I dug a small clump of miscanthus one year, and didn't get it planted right away. I forgot all about it, and it laid on top of the ground the entire summer, and all the way through the fall and winter, tucked under a low branch of a spruce tree. I ran across it when I was cleaning up the garden in the spring, and put it in the ground. I didn't seem to mind a bit. I have some volunteer seedlings that are now laying in that same spot, and have been there for 16 months now, waiting for a new home somewhere. I noticed yesterday that they were flowering under there. I think panicums, calamagrostis, and moor grasses would probalby also do fine in pots in an unheated garage. Based no my experince with them here, pennisetums might be a little touchier. I have more trouble with hardiness with them, it seems.
Linda P