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As the nights get cold and after our first frost of the fall (!) serious thought has to go into wintering some of the plants. Most are easy, they are going somewhere inside the house (where they'll all fit is a question for another time) but the Musella is not.
For obvious reasons my Musella lasiocarpa has become a favourite plant of mine.
The best I could hope for outside I imagine is survival of a very very heavily mulched root, leaving me with a plant that will never flower. I am in zone 5, my backyard is easily a 5b to 6 because of how sheltered it is but I would be seriously pushing all of my luck to think anything that's only reliably hardy in zone 7 would ever survive and thrive for me outside. So that's out of the question.
Bringing it inside the house is out of the question as well. This thing is huge.
My garage is probably the best bet. I'm hoping that the dormancy will mean that the darkness will not be an issue - no leaves = no need for light, right?
The pot will be wrapped probably in a foam pad (the sort that you might use while camping under a sleeping bag. I'm not sure how thick a layer this will make, so maybe I can place all that in a larger box with something like straw around it?
To protect the stems... I'm at a bit of a loss. Moisture should not be a huge problem because it won't be getting snowed on in my garage but I'm not sure what will be the best material for the job - newspapers? Blankets? Something that will breathe more? A wire frame with dry straw? Should the pot be dry or how often should it be watered?
Unfortunately this is also a new garage door and I've never payed attention to how cold it gets in there in winter. I'm sure it goes at least as low as freezing, a big plus though is that there won't be any wind which is usually the worst killer of plants here.
