getting ready to stash the tender plants, with marianne willburn

IT IS NOT TIME quite yet here for what I call the mad stash, storing those non-hardy plants for the winter that we wish to keep alive for another year of service. But it is time to make some plans to do just that.

Marianne Willburn, author of “Tropical Plants and How to Love Them” (affiliate link), and a serious mad stasher, is here to help us puzzle out what goes where for best results.

Marianne is a contributing editor to the collaborative blog called “Garden Rant,” and she’s also the author of the 2021 book, “Tropical Plants and How to Love Them.”’

We’ve both been stashing many kinds of investment plants over many years, with wins and losses along the way. So we wanted to compare notes to help you fine-tune your strategic plans for adapting spots in the house, cellar, garage, wherever, to improve your overwintering results with tender treasures (like Marianne’s bromeliads grouped in a terrarium on a pebble tray, above).

Plus: Comment near the bottom of the page for a chance to win a copy of the book.

Read along as you listen to the Sept. 18, 2023 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).

overwintering tender plants, with marianne willburn

Margaret Roach: So just to sort of set the scene, Marianne, we should tell people where we garden and what our realities are that we’re stashing things against [laughter]. I’m Zone 5b in New York State, Hudson Valley, and maybe I can get to minus 10 or minus 15. Sometimes we don’t. I can have frost in May, even late May. I can have it as early as late September; sometimes it’s not till mid-October. What about you? Where are you?