Grabbing at straws here...... Do you have any large cardboard boxes stored in the cellar? (doesn't everyone have large cardboard boxes stored in the cellar?) If you put the pots in the cardboard boxes, that makes a bigger heavier object, particularly when the cardboard gets wet. Maybe tie a rope around the boxes to hold the wet cardboard together.

You could do something similar with empty birdseed bags. (doesn't everyone have a lot of big empty birdseed bags stored on the porch?)

The idea is to cluster the pots to make them heavier and harder to blow around. Against the outside wall is always good.

Claire (still thinking)

DTD can you lay them on their sides close together and cover with a tarp and LOTS of HEAVY rocks? I'm bringing mine into the garage along with all the patio furniture. I'm laying the birdbath, statues and sundial on their sides on the ground, and one large planter that's on a pedestal will go on the ground against a south wall.

I just planted that whole new upper garden the end of May. This was a completely new planting, after a HUGE project of grading, excavating, new stone walls (over 70 feet around a corner, built in planter etc), granite steps, huge boulders for a rock garden, tons of new trees, shrubs etc. and mulch over landscape fabric. None of them have had sufficient time to root in, so.................???

Good luck to us all!

Put some of them under an overturned wheelbarrow and put a weight on top of the wheelbarrow, like a 5 gallon bucket filled with water or a concrete paver.

Claire

Wow, that was fast! LOL. Thanks guys. Didn't think there'd be much action here as everyone is out battening down the hatches!

Sadly, no big cardboard boxes. They are all at the bottom of my lasagna beds, lol. I do have a TON of compost, soil, and mulch bags, etc. (never throw them away - use them as garbage bags instead of buying new plastic ones). I suppose I could put a bunch of pots in each, but it wouldn't fit a whole lot. But, I suppose three pots in one bag is better (heavier) than three separate pots outside...

Geez, I just keep going outside and looking at it, lol. Then I come back in and think about it. Nothing will get done that way, lol. I just don't feel like moving it, so I have to get over that, bite the bullet, and get to work.

I'm even wondering if my compost tumblers will go tumbling away, lol. They are heavy (well the full one is; the new one is empty and light!) but it (the full one) could easily be knocked off it's stand and roll away! But too heavy for me to move, so it will have to take it's chances...

Dee

Dee - I'm just on my way out to haul my 150+ pots inside my garage. Those wind speeds just spell disaster if you ask me. It's probably a lot of effort for nothing but I'd rather not lose all my hard work to Irene. I considered lining them up along the foundation but if I have to pick them all up and carry them somewhere, it might as well be inside! They're currently all on folding tables so those will have to be carried inside as well. Isn't this fun??

It's not the effort (well, it is, kind of, lol) but it's that I don't have the space indoors for them! My garage is chock full and I haven't put the patio furniture in there yet. Like I said, in winter I can stack the pots up (and still have trouble squeezing them in); just no room now.

Can you just pick up the tables with the pots on them and move everything inside all at once, lol? That would save some time and work!

Claire, that's a good idea. I have some cinderblocks that I could use.... well, that's 8 pots down - 200 more to go, lol!

Dee

I don't have a pot ghetto, but I just went out and counted - I have 40+ containers on my deck, patio, front steps.

Right now I'm kinda in denial. I'm telling myself that hitting land is going to downgrade it, so it will just be a heavy storm by the time it gets to me in Boston MetroWest. DH wants to take everything inside - I don't think he realized how much work is involved in bringing in all the patio furniture, all of our daughters outdoor toys, all the planters. We normally reserve a day every spring and every fall to do the outdoor set up and put away. Like Dee - when we bring all the planters in, we can normally stack them up. But now they are full of wonderful healthy plants.

I have been charging batteries all day. I've pulled out the candles. And I'm going to fill a bunch of water jugs. But I'm going to wait until tomorrow to deal with the plants.

My parents moved in June, so I have a garage full of family stuff they sent me. Hopefully, I'll be able to get that moved out so my car can go back in. Once the car is in the garage, I can't imagine there will be room for anything else. When we get frost warnings in the fall, the pots get thrown in the kitchen. They may end up there. The plastic chairs may go on the downstairs porch, as might some of the sturdier plants like the big bay tree. It's never suffered storm damage, but it has been blown over this year, so it should get some sort of shelter. The big roses don't have nearly the foliage and should stay where they are.

The rain we can handle. I'm less sure about our neighbors, since their house is about a story lower than ours. Hopefully, 100 miles of land will calm the winds. We don't need major power outages.

Dee - I don't have anyone to help haul the tables inside the garage but even if I did, they'd take up too much space. My car will go inside tomorrow as will my truck. I can throw stuff in the bed of the truck and everything should be nice and snug while Irene howls outside. I've got some bricks pushed up against the pots that are going to weather the storm on the breezeway. I put them up against the side of the house where I hope they get spared some of the ferocious wind.

Okay, break's over...there's still lots to do. Oh, I set my new rain gauge in the lawn where there's no tree canopy overhead so I'll have an idea of how much rain we get. If we get more than 6 inches, I'll have to rely on the weather report.

Well, my son came home with his friend, God bless them, and they helped me get a lot done. Dumped out about 40 milk jugs from my winter sowing (yes, I know it's almost September, lol) and threw the empties in the garage. Pulled about 100 pots in the garage, smallest first, squeezing them in anywhere I could (hopefully they will be removed from inside my husband's rowboat before he even knows they're there, lol). Dumped out about another 20 that were empty/dead/nothing but weeds. And then piled up about 20 big pots (22 inches or greater) against the garage wall. Also put about ten big pots next to a wood pile, and stacked some lily crates around them. Hoping all these outside pots get really saturated and then stay put.

Next, the other stuff - trellises, garbage cans, recycling bins, patio furniture. Gee, never realized how much stuff I have outside! The worst thing is I have to drag it all back outside again!

Stay safe everyone!
Dee

Oh, Dee!! So glad to hear you got some help taming the wild pot ghetto!! My breezeway hasn't been this clear & uncluttered since I discovered winter sowing. I'd forgotten how wide it is and now it looks so tidy! Once the storm passes, all those pots in the garage have to be hauled back out and set on the breezeway so this is no more than a brief hiatus from cluttered & untidy!

Hope the storm doesn't inflict too much damage where you are. Be safe!!

I planted about 10 WS containers in the last couple days and dumped a few, to lighten the load - and collected the rest of pots and jammed them into these big blue soda crates - and then put them up against the house foundation. They are large heavy plastic crates that Ishareflowers gave me at the swap I hosted in 2008. I'm hoping they will be okay that way.

Hearing you all talk about putting cars in garages....crap, we don't have a garage and I never thought about the cars.

We're lashing down some things, like lattices that aren't being used. pile em u[ and attach to tree. They might get broken, but I hope they won't be missles.

MY BEE Hives!! Have a post on the Bee forum, but I don't want hundreds of thousands of bees buzzing around busted hives on Monday. That and the dead maple next to the house are my biggest worries.

My 22 year old daughter wrote from San Francisco "Mommy, are you making yourself safe from Hurricane Irene?"

She's a sweetheart.
idabean

I don't have a garage either and tomorrow I'll move the car a little farther away from the old birch tree which is not aging well.

Busted bee hives is a whole new idea - the thought of panicked, angry bees buzzing around the yard is really scary!

I just have a few more houseplants and deck paraphernalia to come in, and the wind toys from the deck, and bird feeders. I'll throw a lot of birdseed on the ground in a protected area. Birdbaths will be laid on their side - I don't think the birds will be lacking water during the storm. Hummers and orioles will have to do without their feeders for a day.

Claire

Well, I have a two-car garage, but we've never put the cars in it! It's more like my potting shed, lol. Well, it used to be till my husband took over half of it - the nerve! So between his stuff (which spills over onto MY side), my stuff (which includes two refrigerators for selling bouquets at market, in addition to more pots than any nursery could ever use, but I keep them because you never know when you'll need a pot or two or five hundred) and storage, there's no room for cars or pot ghettos, lol.

My big fears tomorrow are losing power for more than a day, mostly because my basement floods and I need that sump pump to work! We've got a battery back-up, but still, 10 inches of rain will keep that sucker cranking more than a battery might be able to handle. The inconvenience caused by a lack of water and electricity is secondary to a flooded (newly renovated!) basement. My second fear is one of my tall oaks falling on a car and/or house.

Marie, I hope your bees are okay! Wow, how the heck do you prepare your hives for something like this? Are they movable? Can you move them into the garage, lol? Or at least near a wall?

Dee

Hearing you all talk about putting cars in garages....crap, we don't have a garage and I never thought about the cars.

We're lashing down some things, like lattices that aren't being used. pile em u[ and attach to tree. They might get broken, but I hope they won't be missles.

MY BEE Hives!! Have a post on the Bee forum, but I don't want hundreds of thousands of bees buzzing around busted hives on Monday. That and the dead maple next to the house are my biggest worries.

My 22 year old daughter wrote from San Francisco "Mommy, are you making yourself safe from Hurricane Irene?"

She's a sweetheart.
idabean

My son called a while ago and we swapped "preparedness" tales. He reminded me how we threw tennis balls at a hornet's nest under the rain gutter back when H. Gloria roared through years ago. I'd forgotten he got stung. The eye of the storm passed right over us so it was weird seeing blue sky & fluffy clouds in the midst of a tempest. Five trees came down in my yard that day but somehow they all missed the house (praise heaven).

Idabean - sorry to alert you about the cars but there are 5 gigantic oaks growing along the front of my property so I think about them whenever the wind gets up. There are several "widow maker" dead limbs in the trees that need cutting down but they're too high up to reach without special equipment. I'm especially mindful of them when we get a storm.

"...There are several "widow maker" dead limbs in the trees that need cutting down but they're too high up to reach without special equipment. I'm especially mindful of them when we get a storm..."

Exact same thing here! Hopefully if they go they'll go in the opposite direction from the house and/or cars. Honestly, I'm not so worried about damage to my property as I am about damage to neighbors' property from my stinking pots! Sure wish I knew how much weight a 80-mph wind can pick up....

Dee

One of those big oak trees with the "widow-maker" dead limbs is right beside the utility pole & wires to my house. I took a walk out there to see if any of them posed an immediate threat and ended up chatting with my new neighbor.

Dee, have you got any landscape timbers you could push up against the pot ghetto to anchor them in place? I moved a few dozen pots under the folding tables and used a couple of spare timbers to hopefully keep them from becoming airborne.

The car & truck get priority when it comes to the garage. I have more invested in those than I do some of the crap that's in there.

Speaking of trees - the previous owners of our house lined the property with big ole white pine trees. In the 4 years we've lived here, we've lost 6 trees in storms, 3 of them pines. (In fact if you google map my property, you see a fabulous view of a 60 foot pine tree fallen over at rest in my pond). So I'm particularly worried about loosing trees during this storm. (I'd almost be happy if one landed on our garage - since we are in process of designing a tear down and rebuild of the garage. But I doubt I can get it to hit the garage and miss the rest of the house!)

I'm headed out shortly to finally pick up all the stuff in the yard. Wondering how many hours it is going to take me.

I don't have a garage either, and I'll be moving the car this afternoon to get it farther away from the old birch tree that's not aging well. Many years ago the previous birch tree in that location fell in a storm and just missed my car.

I'm mostly finished with the evacuation; just the deck houseplants and the birdfeeders. Correction, bird and bee feeders.

This is the jam feeder I keep for the orioles and catbirds, but the bees must have heard about Hurricane Irene and they're busy stocking up on Jam. The orioles usually chase the bees away but I've never seen these numbers before. They ignored me completely when I photographed them, although I wouldn't try to stand between them and the jam.

I think I'll leave that feeder up for a while.

Claire

Thanks for mentioning the cars - our garage (now called the shed, since the driveway doesn't extend that far into the yard any more) is full of patio furniture etc, but maybe I'll put some plants into the cars.

Then I'll just hope the old town-owned maple on the street snaps in half, but misses the cars when it crashes down.

I'm mainly leaving my pots where they are, but might tuck a few into the outside shower; it's in an inside corner and will offer some protection ... I hope.

diggerdee -"Sure wish I knew how much weight a 80-mph wind can pick up...." Well, the link below oddly doesn't address pot ghettos specifically, but the scale under Category One, which is the current hurricane strength forecasted for us, will give you some idea of what an 80mph wind is capable of. I'd put a tarp over all the loose pots and secure the tarp with anything heavy that is availble.

Good luck,
Jane

Here is a link that might be useful: The Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale

The forecast keeps getting for lower an lower wind speeds here, which is good. The rain has started, and everything is safely inside. We have enough cheese to feed an army, enough cat food for at least a week, and are about as ready as we are going to be.

They closed the county fair last night, so people could break down and get their animals home today.

Thanks, Jane... I think, lol! I was feeling better about how I arranged things until I read that article. Now I'm rethinking... but the problem is I don't know what more I can do. No tarps on the premises, believe it or not. No landscape timbers. Hmm, maybe more rocks....

Gosh, I wish this darn thing would just come and get over with! I think it's all this waiting that is getting me on edge.

Dee

Yes! Dee check Claire's wunderground charts under the "Batten down..."thread. As of 5p.m., Connecticut has a green dot! I actually woke up this morning thinking and hoping for a green dot on CT! Finger crossed. Jane

Thanks, Dee for posting this since it reminded me yesterday to move my outside pots. I'd already realized that garden furniture and my weed buckets needed to be moved inside, but hadn't thought about plants. I ended up moving all the pots against the house where the ell attaches to the main house since they would be sheltered from two sides and probably not go anywhere. So far, so good. The vehicles are parked across the street in a field to be safe from the poorly branched red maples in the yard.