Hi,

I'm just think ahead of time for this year. I am trying to figure how to overwinter my potted plants this winter. My garage is attached to my house and is too warm and I don't have a shed.
I was thinking of building a small box on the south side of the house (maybe next to the house). Thinking of building  a 2x4 frame with rigid insulation attached. There would be no bottom. I would put the dormant plant in and fill it with leave and put a top on it. it would be kinda small about to hold 8 sm. potted plants.  Any comments or suggestion would be appreciated.

peter

The biggest risk with potted plants is having the roots freeze. Since you would not be putting a bottom on your box you might want to consider at least partially burying the pots to help guard against that. You might also want to hinge the top to allow you to crack it open for ventilation on those odd warm days. Aside from that I think it would work fine. I have a neighbor who does something similar with an in-ground tree and it is thriving.

do you think filling the box with dried leave would help?

Peter,
If you build a box or a lean-to shed against your house it would work. Insulate the outside, but not the ground. The heat radiating from your house will keep it above freezing. If it's next to your house, you can also place "wing" insulation (foam board) on the ground 2-3 feet wide to keep frost from getting to the ground below the box (extremely simple and it works).
An enclosed unheated porch also works quite well. Whatever you do keep the roots from freezing solid!
Good Luck.

So long as your garage is not heated, it should work. Just place the pots as close to the outside as possible. The drafts that blow in should help keep them asleep.

I would use straw not leaves. in my opinion leaves will tend to break down a little quicker and could mold. also throw some moth balls in to help keep mice from nesting in there.

Good call on the mothballed. I lost an entire 4' tall tree roots and all to mice one winter.

This is a very interesting idea and one that might work.   Adriano, who grows lots of figs in containers in his yard just south of Toronto, uses this method to store figs over the winter months.  (I don't have access to my files right now, but from memory...)  He made a 4x8 foot box that was about 24 or 30" tall if I remember correctly.   He may have used some insulating foam on the sides or just filled it some some sort of mulch or straw.   Perhaps someone else can clarify my unclear memory of what he does.     He packs them in and seals the top.

Adriano is also in a relatively warmer zone due to his proximity to Lake Ontario.   

Apparently there is enough trapped moisture to keep them from drying out.   

Be careful with the insulating material that you choose.   I lost my three in-ground figs due to vole damage this past winter - I went 10 years without a problem and then they showed up, causing complete destruction.   So, do some vole and rodent research so that you can prevent a disaster.  For me, I had used leaves as the insulating material and should have used something else.

Ingevald

Hi All,

So this is my first overwintering of my figs.  I built the storage box out of plywood and 2x4 next to the wall of my house closest to my furnace. The box did not have a bottom, and i put a tarp on top of it with some bricks to keep snow, rain and wind from getting into the box. It looks as if almost all of the plants made it through this super cold winter. I lost a couple of small potted ones in 1/2gal pots. I think the larger pot (1gal. +) survived because it held more moisture.
Hope to see some figs this year.

i live in 7b, and i over winter my trees in my attached garage. no problem what so ever. they do wake early.. but then again, you can always do the fig shuffle. 

I used a pop up green house this last winter and loved it!!!  Check out the Flowerhouse brand greenhouses.