You want to save it.

The potted raspberry plant you grew with love and care.

But it’s approaching winter and you know the drop in temperature will kill the plant.

But don’t worry.

You can winterize the potted raspberry plant and help it grow back next season.

Winterize a potted raspberry plant by adding four to eight inches of straw mulch on the potting soil. Wrap the pot with many layers of burlap to provide insulation. If the weather gets too cold, bring the potted raspberry plant indoors where it is warm.

In this post, I ‘ll give you details on each of these steps to winterize raspberry bushes. I’ll also help you understand when you can bring the plant outdoors for the next growing season.

Let’s go.

1. Bring the potted raspberry plant indoors

Raspberries that are planted in pots need to be brought inside right before winter comes and plants freeze over.

When you bring your potted raspberry plant inside, you don’t need to keep it in a heated area because it won’t be actively growing, so it doesn’t need to be exposed to heat. It just needs to be protected from snow and frost.

Bring your potted raspberry plant into your garage or put it in a sheltered area that isn’t heated.

A shed, or an unheated enclosed patio you won’t use during the winter, are great places to put your potted raspberry plant. Don’t bring the potted raspberry plant outside until winter ends.

2. Cover the potting soil with sand or bark

After you bring your potted raspberry plant inside, put the pot with the plant inside into a larger bucket or pot with a small amount of sand or bark at the bottom.

Then, cover the sides and the rest of the bucket with sand or bark until the soil is covered in it, but not the actual raspberry plant. Just make sure that it is sheltered, and no frost can get on your raspberry plant.

After you have covered your potted raspberry plant, you can forget about it for the rest of the winter, as you have finished preparing it for winter.

3. Water the potted raspberry plant

Potted raspberry plants that have been prepared for the winter do need to be watered, but they don’t need to be watered as often as they do when they are outside and actively growing.

You should water your winterized potted raspberry plant maybe once a week. Raspberry plants are dormant during the winter, so they aren’t actively growing and don’t need as much water as they do during the spring and summer, especially because the temperature inside your garage is relatively controlled. Wait until the soil is almost completely dry before adding water to your winterized potted raspberry plant.

After winter ends and you bring your potted raspberry plant back outside, you will need to water it more frequently because of the added sunlight and because it will leave its dormant state and start actively growing again, so it will need more water in order to thrive.

4. Prune the potted raspberry plant

You shouldn’t prune your potted raspberry plant before you prepare it for the beginning of winter. Instead, prune it at the very end of winter, right before spring starts and before you bring it back outside.

At the end of winter, prune the branches back as much as you need to and make sure the branches are not uncontrollable and are uncrowded.

When you prune your potted raspberry plant, make sure you remove all branches that disease have damaged or affected during the winter.

Now that you know how to prepare your potted raspberry plant for the winter, you can ensure that it will survive the winter and you can enjoy homegrown raspberries for years to come, even when it gets freezing in the winter.

It is very easy to prepare potted raspberry plants for the winter, and you can forget about it after you bring it inside most of the time because it doesn’t need to be watered frequently, and you don’t need to add fertilizer to the soil.

Raspberry plants go dormant during the winter so you won’t be able to get raspberries from it, but you can do a few things that will ensure that your potted raspberry plant will survive the winter.

Don’t forget to bring your potted raspberry plant outside again when winter ends, or you likely won’t be able to enjoy raspberries from it when you want to because it didn’t have enough time to properly prepare to grow raspberries.

However, you likely will enjoy raspberries later in the season than you have in the past, but you may have to do some extra work during the growing season.

When can you bring the potted raspberry plant outside?

Eventually, you will need to bring your potted raspberry plant outside so it can grow and you can enjoy raspberries from the plant.

First, uncover the soil of your potted raspberry plant until you can take your plant out of the bucket of sand or bark that you covered it in. After you remove your potted raspberry plant from the material, put it in a larger pot so the roots can expand and your plant can thrive.

Then, bring your potted raspberry plant outside when winter is over, and spring has almost begun. Don’t take it outside if there is a possibility that the plants will frost over at night, because this may harm your potted raspberry plant.

If you bring your potted raspberry plant outside and it frosts over, it will probably become damaged and won’t grow any raspberries anymore, so make sure you don’t bring your potted raspberry plant outside too soon.

When you bring your potted raspberry plant outside after winter ends, put it in a sunny area that has plenty of room for the branches to grow out.


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