What Determines When

[newnandawg]

you bring your potted trees inside? I have been bringing my trees inside
the garage for years now. I usually wait until after a couple of good frosty
nights/mornings and all the leaves have fallen off. Most of mine will be
moving inside today and tomorrow since we had our third good frost and
a below freezing temp last night. The forecast for the next week is highs
in the 60's and lows in the 40's and 50's. If I leave them out they will
get confused. LOL

Just curious what everyone uses to make that move.

[aphahn]

When lows start heading for mid to low twenties, but will shuffle them a couple times if they still have leaves.

[eboone]

When they lose their leaves.
Or, if it is heading for a sub freezing temp, move them in the garage or next to the house for the night to make the transition without taking the chance of losing them to a bad freeze

[Kelby]

I wait til lows in the mid-20s.

[AscPete]

Once the trees have been hit by a few frosts in the mid to high 20's they're moved under cover.

My first hard frost is usually mid October and the trees that will be allowed to stay "green" and 1 gallon size pots are usually moved inside before that date.

[71GTO]

I pretty much do the same everyone else so far. I wait for the leave to drop then a few cold night and they are in. I just brought in everything this weekend.

[Taverna78]

I actually being my pots in after 2 frost no matter what future forecast is. I remove all dead leaf and cover each tree with brown leaf bag from hardware store. Tis way even if it gets little warm up a day or two they no get light and will not start to sprout.

[strudeldog]

Mine came in Sunday Mike. They had been frosted pretty good a couple times, except for the 1st years which I brought in after a light frost. Today would have been Ideal after last 2 night in the mid-20s F for a short time, but Sunday worked better on my schedule. Was alot easier this year fewer pots and only a 6 or so 10 Gal + I did wrap a couple airlayers that had bunch of growth above it I wanted to harden off for cuttings. I might have lost those airlayers. Spring will tell

[Harborseal]

We had temps down to 30 3 times and some plants, including 1 gals still had green leaves. Our recent 3 hrs @ 27 degrees put a stop to that. I'd have hired movers already except they won't work over the holiday. We're scheduled for 24 degrees and I wanted them in before that but since many of you let them experience the low 20s I guess I'll be OK.

[Rafaelissimmo]

I am going away for a few days tomorrow, and monday we had our first hard freeze here in NYC so I said might as well move all the remaining trees with leaves into the garage. Most of the Col de Dames still had 3-5 leaves left but I could wait no longer. Many of my trees have been bare for almost 3-4 weeks and have been in the garage over 2 weeks if not more. So it depends on the variety. I wanted some cold to hit some of my youngsters so that is why I waited until this week. But also I would rather the leaves all fell off naturally first before I bring them in for good.

[Tonycm]

It depends on container size for me. Large pots stay outside until mid twenties while small 1 gallon pots are moved in the garage when temps hit the low thirties to upper twenties.