Do terra cotta pots freeze & crack if left outside in the winter?
We are in zone 4 and it can get to 30 below zero but we like the look of terra cotta pots in the garden. We simply bring them in for the winter. If you like the look of terra cotta there are a number of plastic pots that look so much like terra cotta that you would have to pick them up to tell the difference. As for plants we keep a large number of perennials in gallon sized plastic pots and they winter over perfectly well and we keep our bonsai trees buried in plastic pots for the winter and re-pot them in terra cotta for the summer. All terra cotta is not created equal. We make terra cotta bird feeders and houses and they have never broken and some of them are more than 10 years old. The secrete is a drain hole in the bottom. Plus they are fired a bit higher than most terra cotta to make them less porous. Good luck.
