Overwintering Convolvulus and young lavender.
Teapot Taylor
Posts: 4
Should a potted convolvulus spend winter in a shed or would it survive outside? Also, should young lavender, still in pots, be put indoors to survive Edinburgh winter?
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Teapot Taylor
Posts: 4
Posts
Convolvulus is not very hardy and won't cope with temps below -5C or winter wet so really needs a cool, light windowsill or frost free greenhouse or cold frame to survive.
Lavender, big or small, doesn't like winter wet so may be OK in a light, sheltered spot where the pots won't get frozen or drowned. I grow mine as a low hedge in full sun along the top of a retaining wall where drainage is good and they have survived -20C but, for their first winter, they had had an entire summer season to grow big enough to cope. I lost about 5 that first winter - Hidcote variety - but the rest and the replacements have survived and thrived since.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
Thank-you.
Oh, I am a newbie gardener and have neither a cold frame nor greenhouse. Maybe I should bring it indoors? I don't want to lose it as two perished last year that lived in my border.
At the moment my young lavender are in their pots sited under a privet hedge where rain doesn't reach.This will be their first winter and I don't want to lose them. They are the pink flowered and white flowering type.
Windowsill then.
How big are the pots your lavender is in? They do need some moisture but don't like to sit in wet and, as far as I know, the pink and white French varieties (except lavendula Edelweiss) are much less hardy than my Hidcote or Munstead Dwarf which are British varieties better suited to British weather.
Consider transferring yours to a window box with John Innes no 2 or 3 compost and keep them indoors on a cool, light windowsill till next spring.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw
Pots are small. I have some JI's compost in shed. I will do as you've suggested particularly as last winter I lost all of the same type of lavender which I kept outside but didn't realise they were not as hardy as Hidcote etc. Many thanks for your advice.
Health warning TT. Verdun is in the balmy south west of England and never gets anything like an Edinburgh winter.
Plants in small pots are more likely to get their roots frozen to death so pot on and take into shelter. A window box indoors will be fine and then you can plant them out next spring when the first of the frosts are over - either in pots, troughs or your borders.
"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing." - George Bernard Shaw