Overwintering a Penstemon

[Digging in the Dirt 3]

Yesterday my neighbor gave me a Red Riding Hood Penstemon that they did not want.  They received it as a gift but never planted it, so it's still in its original container from the nursery.  The plant is still very much alive (it has green leaves), but I did have to cut off the dead flower stalks.  Now my question is how do I overwinter it?

 

I have an unheated garage that is attached to the house, so that would probably keep it from freezing and thawing all winter long, but I have never really monitored the temperature in the garage so I don't know if it would be to warm in there (especially in March and April)?

 

The other question I have is how often should I water the plant once it goes dormant?

 

Thanks

 

   

[carolm 1]

You could bury the pot directly in the ground and mulch it well.

[Digging in the Dirt 3]

Hmmm, just bury the pot in the garden for the winter and let mother nature take care of the plant instead of me.  Now that sounds like a good idea.  My original idea of trying to overwinter the plant inside my unheated garage doesn't seem like it would work.

 

I took a thermometer out into my garage the other night just to see how cold it gets in there, and even though it went into the 20's outside, inside the garage the temperature was in the upper 30's.  So by March, the temperatures would probably be high enough in the garage to make the plant want to start growing, and then I would have to come back out to the forum and ask how you stop a plant from growing

 

Thanks again for the idea.

[Digging in the Dirt 3]

Last November, my neighbor gave me a plant (a red riding hood Penstemon) that they didn't want.  Since it was late November, I really didn't want to take the plant out of it's original pot and plant it, so Carolm came up with the idea of planting the plant pot and all into the ground, then mulching it well.

 

It worked like a charm and the plant came back as if it had been planted years ago.  I almost don't want to dig it up and move it

 

Thanks again.