Illustration by Eric Keith

Growing season may be over, but before you pack your pots away, consider this — pots can serve a purpose in winter too. Why have empty containers sitting on the corner of your patio or gathering dust in your garage when they can add to the beauty of your yard — even in the dead of winter?

It’s called winter potscaping and it’s still a relatively new idea in Northwest Missouri. Earl May Nursery outside manager Craig Hayes says he first heard about it a few years ago at an industry workshop.

“They talked about how they were taking cuttings from greens, dogwoods or eucalyptus — things that kind of have more a red stem,” he says. “Then you go in before the soil freezes up and put some greenery in and that just carried until spring until you got back into potting your pansies.”

So he decided to give it a try. He approached some clients with the idea of not only making their spring and summer flower pots look great, but changing them out in the fall and winter, too.

“Very few of them do a three-time change where they do a spring, a summer and then change it out again in the fall,” he says. “Most people will just roll their pots off to the side to store away. So when I approach a client, you can almost see the light bulb go on when you say, ‘Well, you know we could make your pots look good year round instead of just sitting there in the winter.’”

There are all kinds of materials that can be used to liven up your pots in the cold-weather months. Cuttings off of live Christmas trees work well. The boughs add a colorful background for supplements like red-twigged dogwoods, pine cone mixes and bows.

“We’ve gotten into some eucalyptus,” Mr. Hayes says. “We sometimes use some roping that’s pre-made for Christmas. We even have some people that will buy artificial Christmas trees, small ones, or even real Christmas trees and sink them down in pots.”

“There are bittersweet berries that you can use out there,” adds Lucy McNally, Mann’s Garden Center floral manager. “There are curly willow if you want to design something kind of neat. There’s hypericum berries — they come in red, green and orange and come in single stem if you want to do an oasis type of thing.”

Winter potscaping is more than just for the Christmas season. The idea is to keep something in the containers all winter long to take the edge off the gray, dreary days. You would think it would be tough to keep the greenery looking fresh all winter, but Mr. Hayes says as long as it stays cold, the greenery will usually stay green until April.

And if it doesn’t, you can always try a trick of the trade.

“There’s a product called ‘Wilt Stop,’ and a lot of times we’ll spray our greenery and even our Christmas trees with it,” he says. “It holds the moisture in greens, whether it’s live or not live, and it keeps them from drying out as quick. So it kind of preserves them. “

And if you’re not sure you’re up for doing natural materials, there are always man-made ones to try.

“I have done several different variegated types of materials like silk leaves,” Ms. McNally says. “You can do something like that and they have a coating on them that allows them to stay outside as well. So you can go either way. If you don’t want to mess with watering something, you can have something that is artificial and it will still be OK.”

Lifestyles reporter Tamara Clymer can be reached at tami.clymer@npgco.com.

Weather requires special pot materials

Finding the right type of container that can outlast a Missouri winter can be a bit tricky. Experts say the old stand-by terra cotta pots may not be the best choice. Terra cotta’s ability to absorb water and our freezing and thawing winter temperatures makes it prone to cracking and falling apart. Winter gardeners may be better off picking a crock made of the following hardier materials:

•Styrofoam

•Plastic

•Polyurethane

•Fiberglass

•Wood

•Hypertufa

•Concrete

Source: the-artistic-garden.com