Preparing young plants for overwintering - Gardening with Brendan

For the past few months I’ve been sowing a lot of seeds in the hope that at least some of them will make it through the winter and emerge robust and healthy and raring to get going in the early spring. I’ve never done plant overwintering so it’s really a matter of hope over experience and I do hope it is not all for nothing.

I’m banking on the relatively mild winters of recent years not being too destructive this year into next, and I’m also hoping the plants will be a decent enough size so that they have a decent chance of withstanding whatever is thrown at them.

Most of my young plants I plan to keep in pots as I reckon a lot of them would not be tough enough in the ground if there was a heavy frost and even before that, the slugs and snails are still very much on the hunt and would eat them for breakfast if they went in at such a tender stage. So into pots they are going and I plan to line most of them up against the walls of the house so that there will be at least some protection from the elements and perhaps some heat will escape from the house and keep temperatures a degree or two above the other parts, which may stop them freezing to death. I’ve also been looking into others who have used makeshift portable frost protections for plants with bits of old wire and old bed sheets or sheet plastic for nights when it is expected to get below freezing so I have some some sort of contraption ready just in case.

Some plants I do plan to get into the ground including some of the biennials like Wallflowers and Canterbury bells sown in July which are already pretty sturdy in their big pots and should be fine. I also have some biennial Sweet William and Honesty in the ground now for the past few months and they should overwinter fine and flower in the spring.

The least hardy and youngest plants will either be staying indoors with me by the windows or in the plastic mini greenhouses, as this too should keep temperatures a few degrees above that on the outside and also retain any warmth from the low winter sun for a bit longer. I will just have to remember to check them for water content or damping off, which is easier said than done when you are going to and coming home from work in the dark and the cold in the depths of winter.

That said I’m going to give all of it my best shot, and I plan to put this column into hibernation mode in the coming weeks for the rest of 2024 and will hopefully return with a garden full of plants in the spring.

I stay have some plants in seed trays and in cells and at this stage, with shortening days and the weather turning colder, it’s a bit of a race against time to get them potted on. I’ve a lot to do and this week I’ve been super busy when I’m not super busy at work trying to get everything transplanted so they can grow a bit more before the winter pause. Among those I’ve potted on so far this week are dozens upon dozens of Aquilegia (Columbine a.k.a granny’s bonnet), which is a perennial and should do fine over the winter outside and return year after year, and more of the biennial Honesty and different varieties of another biennial, Canterbury Bells.

One of the new plants I tried this summer was Chinese lanterns, which have papery orange seed pods which look like little pumpkins and which turn a weird skeletal shape in autumn. I was hoping to have them big enough to flower and do their thing before Halloween, but tardiness in potting them in has meant that if they survive it will be next year before we see how that goes.

More and more of my late father’s radishes are coming up so I’ve put some in the raised bed next to the Brussels sprouts, which are not starting to come into their own from under the shadow of the broccoli, to help speed them along.

The other plants I have sowed since July and which I plan to overwinter include Lupin, Baby’s breath, Hollyhock, Nigella (Love in a Mist) and Cornflower, some of which are coming on really well now having been potted on a while back. So there should be plenty to keep me busy over the winter months and that’s the real purpose behind trying all these.

I’ve really enjoyed having this column and making the little videos to go along with it online this year and the chats, feedback and advice you get from people you meet. There’s a lot more people out there gardening in the north west of Ireland than I ever realised and everyone I’ve chatted to has been only to happy to give pointers. Hopefully next year we can get out and about to check out some of the gardening and eco projects, allotments and community initiatives across the north west through this column and highlight all the good work that is going on and maybe drop by a few locallly run gardening centres along the way. If you’d be interested in featuring, drop me a line at [email protected]