Overwintering Your Potted Plants? Here Are Martha Stewart's Top Tips & Tricks

As colorful fall leaves cover every inch of your front yard, and your favorite flowers start going to seed, you may be wondering if you should repot your plants during the winter. Container grown plants can add wonderful color, texture, and variety to even the smallest patio garden, but they can also be at risk during the colder months. Terracotta and other pots made of porous clay can crack when exposed to freezing temperatures. Even if your containers stay intact, waterlogged or frozen soil inside them can cause serious root damage or even plant death. Gardening guru Martha Stewart recently shared what she's doing at her farm in Bedford, New York, to keep her extensive collection of container plants thriving until spring. If it's time to overwinter your own potted plants, here are Martha Stewart's top tips and tricks.

The first thing you need to do before storing your potted plants is to inspect, trim, and repot them when necessary. Keep an eye out for any pests or damaged stems and roots that need to be removed using a sharp, sterilized tool like the Martha Stewart Handheld Pruner. Next, take note of any root bounding that indicates your plant needs a bigger pot. Easily repot your favorite plants by choosing the right soil and watering them before transferring to prevent shock. For larger pots, Stewart shared a secret on an episode of Ask Martha: fill halfway with recycled bubble wrap to reduce the overall weight of the pot.

Successful overwintering of potted plants also requires controlling the surrounding temperature and moisture, which Martha Stewart accomplishes in large hoop houses similar to the KING BIRD Large Walk-in Heavy Duty Green House. She recommends thinking about how to use both vertical and horizontal space while making sure plants don't touch to avoid spreading disease or pests. Before storing them for the winter, Stewart groups her own potted plants by type and care needs, stacking them on shelves and plant risers made from tree stumps.

Since more sizable ceramic pots containing large trees or shrubs can be especially susceptible to cracking when moved, Stewart wraps them with protective moving blankets before relocating them from gardens to greenhouses. Her crews frequently use a hand truck for the job.

Whether you're simply storing warm-weather potted plants or you want to grow hardy winter varieties, prepping your greenhouse for winter is one of the most important steps you can take to ensure they stay healthy. Along with adequate ventilation and insulation, you'll need to make sure the heating system is working properly. Her greenhouses are checked a few times each day to make sure the temperature is just right. A task made easy with the best-selling ThermoPro TP50 Digital Hygro Thermometer and Humidity Gauge.