What Outdoor Plants Survive Winter

  • Echinacea coneflower
  • The lily of the valley.
  • The Blue Spruce.
  • … Wintergreen Boxwood
  • The catmint.
  • Heuchera coral bells
  • The pansies.
  • Hostas.

Violas

It should come as no surprise that violas are the most widely used winter container plant. With the right care, violas can bloom all through the winter and even into the summer. Its flowers, which come in a variety of hues including white, pink, yellow, and red, can undoubtedly make your home seem cheerier even on the darkest of days. Additionally, violas are edible; you may use them as a culinary garnish or as sweets to decorate cakes.

Violas don’t require much maintenance. Just keep in mind to give your violas regular waterings and plant them in either full sun or moderate shade.

Pansies

Pansies are remarkable winter plants because they can withstand bitter cold and flourish vigorously once summer returns. Its “smile face flowers” are colorful and fragrant, and they may bring a lot of happiness into your area.

Pansies do well in regular potting soil with a small amount of all-purpose fertilizer. To encourage the growth of new blooms, fading flowers must be deadheaded and exposed to sunlight.

Top advice: Underwatering is one of the most frequent issues with pansies. Therefore, be sure to consistently water your pansies.

Erica carnea

The sun-loving evergreen Erica carnea. This plant is deserving of a “pot in your house since it requires little maintenance, is winter hardy, is disease and pest-free, and produces a profusion of pink and purple flowers in the winter.

Some negligence doesn’t bother Erica Carnea. However, for their blossoms to have a brilliant color, they need some sunlight (6 hours per day).

Best practice: Erica plants need wet, well-drained soil. As a result, wait a little while before watering again.

Gaultheria procumbens

A type of evergreen shrub with dark green, crimson-tinted leaves is called Gaultheria procumbens. Nothing can give off a more festive atmosphere than this winterberry. Truly, the most gorgeous ornaments you can put to your home are its bright red berries. It might create a beautiful adornment for the entrance of your home.

They can withstand drought and don’t require a lot of water. Both complete and partial shade are good for their growth.

Clivia

Popular indoor flowering plants include clivia. Huge, long, thick, dark-green leaves sprout from the bulb. In the late winter, clivia plants produce a cluster of 15 to 20 tiny flowers. It is simple to maintain even if it is fairly expensive—the cost per plant might exceed $20.

Clivia just requires minimal maintenance. Your clivia only needs a small amount of water in the winter to keep its leaf moist. It thrives in any kind of organically rich, well-drained soil.

Hellebores

Few plants can match hellebores in their ability to withstand winter. Even when the ground is covered in snow, hellebores produce nodding, fragrant, long-lasting flowers that bloom in a variety of colors. The serrated, leathery leaves of hellebores have attractive foliage.

Plant hellebores in organic soil that is well-drained. Hellebores dislike a lot of sunlight. They prefer places with filtered sun, dappled light, and shade, but be sure to give them regular waterings.

Best practice: To avoid leaf spot disease, remove old and damaged leaves at the conclusion of the growing season.

Sedum

Sedum comes in a variety of spreading rates, from low to high. The best Sedum kinds for container gardening are creeping and medium. Sedums are primarily planted for their vivid foliage, but they can also produce brief spikes of gorgeous flowers. Sedum is extremely resistant and drought tolerant, just like any other variety of succulent.

The upkeep of Sedum plants is simple. Any type of succulent mix and well-draining soil are acceptable. To keep your plant healthy, make sure your pots contain a drainage hole. The majority of Sedums prefer full or partial sun. Water your Sedums sparingly during the winter to avoid winter rot.

Best practice: Underwatering is more preferable to overwatering for succulents in general.

Boxwood

A boxwood plant in a pot is ideal for the winter. A pot of neatly manicured boxwood shrub is a living sculpture that may provide color to your home all year long. It thrives all year long, through cold winters and scorching summers, and requires almost no maintenance.

When selecting a pot for your boxwood, you should pay close attention. The pot needs to be substantial, tall, and have a decent drainage hole. Boxwoods dislike sitting in soggy roots. Apart from that, boxwood maintenance is simple. Water your boxwood sparingly all year long, and lessen the watering in the winter.

Top tip: To keep your plant warm in the winter, mix some wood chips and leaves into the soil.

ZZ plant

The best plant to grow in pots throughout the winter is a ZZ plant because it is simple to care for, fashionable, and incredibly cold tolerant. You can utilize its oval, glossy, deep green shape as interior décor.

ZZ plants are ideal for any busy owner because they require very little maintenance. In the winter, giving it a monthly watering is plenty to keep it content. You can put the ZZ plant wherever in your home because it prefers low to medium light.

The best advice is to fertilize it once a year with worm compost so that you may enjoy its glossy foliage all year long.

Jade plant

A succulent with robust branches and oval-shaped leaves is the jade plant. It blossoms with white, lightly scented flowers in the late winter. The little Jade plant, which is about 3-6 inches tall, can be positioned on a table or bookshelf anyplace in your home. Since the jade plant is thought to be a lucky plant, many people want to put it in their workspace.

Because the jade plant is succulent, it prefers soil with good drainage. Avoid overwatering them. Root rot and fungus diseases can be brought on by overwatering.

Best practice: Indirect light is ideal for jade plants. Its foliage will burn if it receives too much sunshine.

Lily of the Valley

White flowers in the shape of bells are present on lily of the valley plants. Any room in the house can readily be filled with the smell. It is advised to grow the plant in pots so that you may limit the rhizome expansion and transport the fragrant plant wherever you wish. This plant reaches the list despite appearing little and delicate since it is adaptable and cold-hardy.

The most crucial step, just as with boxwoods, is picking a pot that works for your lily plant. The ideal pot for your lily is one whose depth is greater than its width. Put your pots in a spot with filtered light. early in the morning, water.

To prevent wetting the foliage on Lily of the Valley plants, you should also divert your garden hose to the ground.

Remind yourself to cut the flower stalks off when the petals start to fall off and the flowers turn dry.

Japanese Skimmia

A cold-tolerant evergreen, Japanese Skimmia features glossy leaves all year long, clusters of star-shaped, pink-tinted flowers in the summer, and ornamental red buds or berries in the winter. A nice scent is produced by both the blossoms and the leaves.

Japanese Skimmia is a plant that enjoys the shade. It may readily flourish in both partial and total shade, with morning and dappled afternoon sunlight being preferred. Skimmia grows well in slightly acidic, well-drained soil.

Top tip: Water your Japanese Skimmia frequently and frequently enough to keep the soil consistently moist.

You might need to keep plants that aren’t on this list warm and protected from wind, snow, and frost. Not every plant is as resilient as those on this list! Learn how to protect your prized plants and how to wrap them for the winter.

We hope that this list will be useful to you as you make your winter shopping decisions. The next step is to select stylish, high-quality pots for your loved ones. Make sure to look at our fiberglass containers, which are portable and strong enough for you to relocate your plants wherever you like.

Check out our top landscaping planters for indoor and outdoor gardening excellence if you’re unsure of which pots are best for your plants!

Which plants can withstand subfreezing conditions?

Although evergreens are well renowned for their capacity to endure the winter, they are not the only plants that can withstand freezing temperatures and frost. Some frost is acceptable for leafy vegetables including chard, lettuce, kale, collards, and cabbage. Crocus, snowdrops, and primrose are just a few of the early-spring flowering flowers that may survive the winter, and pansies are very hardy. Along with catmint, baptista, sedum, and peonies, other plants that resist frost and add some visual beauty are hostas, heuchera, iris, lily of the valley, cyclamen, and violas.

As a general rule, mature perennial plants with numerous, thick leaves and thick or deep roots do better in frosty conditions than other plants. However, with the right preparation, the majority of mature plants can endure frosts.

Which plants can endure every season?

Flowers That Grow Year-round in Any Climate

  • 01 of 08. Honey Balm Getty Images/Michael Westhoff.
  • Penstemon, number 2 of 8. National Garden Bureau.
  • 03 of 08. the threadleaf coreopsis. Photographer’s Choice/Getty Images/John Burke .
  • Geranium, number 4 of 8.
  • Sedum, number 5 of 8.
  • Yarrow, number 6 of 8.
  • Coneflower, position 7 of 8.
  • Daylily, number 8 of 8.

Can you keep plants outside throughout the winter?

  • Brown’s yew and Japanese yew can spruce up a front porch all year long. It is tolerant of drought, tolerant of cold, and prefers both full sun and partial sun conditions.
  • Popular evergreens like potted blue spruce are frequently grown as Christmas trees. Both full sunlight and moist soil are required. Watering is therefore crucial. Simply check to see if the pot has a drain hole to prevent overwatering.
  • Topiaries of cypress require morning sun and midday shade. Additionally, you need to watch out for overwatering to prevent rot.
  • English boxwoods, winter gem boxwoods, and boxwood hedges are all formed like topiaries and require direct sunshine to survive chilly winters. One to two times a week is the standard for watering. But only hot, dry days should be used to water it.

What kind of plant is winter-hardy?

Winter-tolerant plants either continue to grow or at the very least stay healthy and dormant. In addition to hardy evergreens, these also contain a wide range of cultivated plants, such as different types of broccoli, cabbage, and carrot. While certain bulbs, like freesia, can withstand a harsh winter, others, like tulips, require cold winters to flourish. A hardiness zone is a designation that identifies the range of climates in which many household plants can thrive. The cultivation of cold-hardy plants is essential for winter gardens.

Can perennials in pots endure the winter?

If you have spent the effort planning, planting, and caring for your perennial container garden during the entire growing season, you probably want to overwinter it. However, other gardeners prefer to treat perennials like annuals and chuck them out once the growing season is finished. Others decide to move their perennials in containers into the garden for the winter before starting again with new plants in the spring. Your decision is yours. Continue reading if you want to try overwintering.

Why do containerized perennials require special treatment to overwinter successfully?

  • Perennial plants dislike temperature changes that are stronger above ground than below it.
  • The risk of harm is higher when perennials are grown in pots because they are less cold-hardy.
  • Remember that your chances of successfully overwintering increase with pot size. This is so that the roots can be protected from freezing and desiccating by a larger volume of soil in a larger pot.
  • Perennials typically have an easier time surviving the winter in warmer climates or regions with a consistent, heavy layer of snow cover. It takes more effort to get them to survive the winter in the north and in locations with erratic snow cover.

No of your climate, give containerized perennials a good watering just before the ground freezes so they have a supply on hand for the warm winter months. If overwintering under cover, you can also occasionally add a few handfuls of snow to the top of the container; if the temperature rises sufficiently for it to melt, this will provide the plants extra water.

Despite this, many perennials grown in containers do not make it through the winter because they drown from receiving too much water. The roots sit in water until the soil thaws completely and the water can drain out of the pot via the drainage hole at the bottom when the pot accumulates water at the top but the soil is still frozen at the bottom. Water, especially ice cold water in the winter, is not good for roots to sit in. To prevent this from happening, overwinter your perennials in containers on their sides so that water cannot collect at the top of the pot or overwinter them under cover where they won’t receive much water over the winter or the first few weeks of spring before the soil thaws.

Overwintering Techniques

On the best way to overwinter perennials in containers, there are several different schools of thought. Some of the techniques listed here might be effective in your climate, while others might not. The best approach to figure out what will work for you is to experiment.

  • The majority opinion seems to be that burying the entire pot in the ground is the best approach to overwinter perennials grown in containers. The roots are safeguarded in this manner, just as they would be if the plants were genuinely buried in a garden. Just be careful not to keep the pot in the ground for an excessive amount of time in the spring, as this may cause the roots to start growing out of the drainage holes and securing the pot to the earth.
  • After the first severe frost, you can overwinter them by putting the pots in a cold frame or an unheated garage for the winter. Don’t overwinter perennials in a greenhouse or another warm location where plants won’t fall dormant because all perennials need a time of dormancy or a cold treatment to blossom.
  • If you are overwintering your containers outdoors, arrange them together as closely as you can in a protected spot on the ground. In this manner, the soil’s heat and moisture can be absorbed by the pots. A excellent location is often on the east side of the home. Never store the containers over the winter on a deck, paved area, or any other surface that is elevated from the ground. Perennials in containers that are exposed on higher levels throughout the winter have a poor probability of successfully overwintering.
  • The pots will require some form of insulating material to be placed on top of them. Try piling evergreen boughs or leaves on top of the pots, then cover everything with a heavy blanket of snow. Use an insulating blanket designed specifically for this if snowfall is unreliable where you live. For further security, you may also consider wrapping the pots themselves in an insulating material.