Heat and Cold-Resistant Container Plants

Question from Brenda:
What are some good container plants for Oklahoma that will make it through our cold winters and hot summers?  Thank you!

Answer from Pat:
The hallmark plants for containers in cold-winter climates are hardy evergreens. Your garden center should have a good selection. Books and magazines, especially those on formal landscape design and roof gardens, will give you many ideas for the style of the container and the color and shape of the evergreen.  Be sure to invest in pots and containers, such as half wine barrels, that can withstand freezing temperatures without shattering. Also, remember no plant can survive winter outdoors if its roots freeze solidly. In northern Europe, shrubs and trees in containers are brought indoors in winter or treated as annuals. Sometimes the shrub and the container is wrapped to protect the plant from cold, but this won’t work when the winters are too cold.

Look around at local houses and hotels with container-grown plants. This is the best way to see what grows best in your area. One way to spark up container-grown shrubs in milder winters, where temperatures occasionally reach freezing but not far below, is to plant tulips or other hardy bulbs around the roots of evergreens in fall, but again, if the bulbs freeze it will kill them.

The best solution is to fill containers with seasonal color. The choices these days are far wider and more varied than even twenty years ago. Companies such as Proven Winners™ specialize in such plants and you can keep some of the selections going through winter in the house. When you empty out the plants in fall, decorate the tops of the tubs with ornaments, dried grasses stuck upright in the soil, wooden tree forms, or boughs and large colored globes for Christmas.