This Simple Trick Prevents Your Outdoor Planters From Cracking in the Winter
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If you’re a fellow cold-weather dweller, you know that winter isn’t for the faint of heart, and that includes anything that resides outside during these harrowing months. Things like patio furniture (especially the wooden variety), outdoor cushions and throw pillows, and garden hoses often can’t handle the brunt of the frigid temperatures without protective measures.
And then there are pots and planters. If you’ve ever left a real terra-cotta or ceramic pot outside, you may know all too well that they’re subject to cracking—in a big way. We’re talking gigantic cracks that run top to bottom, causing the pot to fall apart and leave piles of dirt in its wake. And bringing them indoors? Being unbelievably heavy, you might decide to just brave the weather and hope for the best with your pots.
That’s why our mouths were agape when we saw a “Why didn’t we think of that?!” fix posted by Instagram user @youcandoitgardening. The gardening coach shares a trick that takes seconds and you can say goodbye to those cracked planters.
She explains that when a pot is upright, snow or rain that saturates the dirt freezes, expands, and causes the pot to crack. As an alternative to lugging those heavy pots inside, she recommends placing the pot on its side, something that prevents rain and snow from accumulating and cracking the pot. You can rest it gently against something if it happens to be on a slope.
She suggests waiting to do this trick until it's good and cold outside when the dirt is essentially frozen and won’t spill out all over the place. For her own pots, she also rolls them out of the way instead of keeping them out in the open.
Many comments communicate intrigue and wonder at how such a straightforward trick could prevent cracking—one Instagram user says, “Oh how could I not have thought of something so simple before! (Immediately starts thinking about all the beautiful, not cheap, pots I will buy next year that will survive the winter).”
Other commenters share alternative ideas that have worked for them, and many of them involve emptying the dirt and storing them indoors—storing them upside-down, hauling them to a shed with the help of a skateboard—and some have discovered other outdoor fixes, like placing bricks under the pots and making caps for the pots using PVC boards.
To prevent dragging them inside, or spending time dumping all that dirt, simply turning your planters on their sides could be the solution you didn’t know you needed.
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