A while back, I had to dig up my irises because voles were decimating them. These irises came from my mom who passed away in 2011 & are precious to me. I have them in containers & need to protect them when there is a frost or freeze. I live in zone 8b about 150 miles from the Gulf coast. What do I need to do? BTW, we do not have many freezing nights & I do not have a garage to put them in.

Since you have so few freezing days you could protect your pots by piling up leaves around the pots to create some thermal protection. The leaves don't need to cover the insides of the pots, just pile them up outside the pot to about the rim.

I'd say Leslie has it correct...either "surround" the pots with some sort of "mulch", or, "sink" the pots into the soil...rim deep.

I just leave my pots sitting about. I have done this for many years with no freeze damage. I live in zone 7a. We have already been down to 27 degrees and I still have bloomstalks on two potted irises.

I put all of the pots (including irises) in a protected corner where I hope they'll get less wind, etc. Last year I put down straw and had a ton of slugs in the spring, is there any other sort of mulch (pine needles, leaves, etc) which would be a better option?

Thanks,

Katie

I use pine needles since they are readily available from my trees. Not had slug issues before but can't say for sure if you will have less slug issues. It could be that with all the pots being all in a corner, the ground under the pots stayed damp and attracted the slugs.