Perennials & Overwintering

Not everything in the garden starts from scratch each year. Perennial plants — herbs, fruit bushes, asparagus, rhubarb, and others — come back season after season. MyVeggieGarden tracks them across years so you build a continuous history.

How perennials work in the app

When you mark a plant as perennial, two things happen:

1. The plant stays in your garden view across seasons instead of being archived
2. The Winterized milestone becomes available — logging it triggers special behavior

The Winterized milestone

Winterized is a protected milestone (like Removed) with special behavior. When you log a planting as Winterized:

• The planting is marked as dormant — still visible but grayed out in the garden view
• A new planting is automatically created for the next season, linked to the original via parentPlantingId
• The new planting inherits the same zone, plant, and support assignments
• Your log history carries over — you can see past seasons' notes on the new planting

This means you don't have to manually re-add perennials each year. Winterize them at the end of the season and they're ready for spring.

Multi-year tracking

Because perennial plantings are linked across seasons, you can see a plant's full history:

• Year 1: "Planted 3 asparagus crowns. Didn't harvest — letting them establish."
• Year 2: "Stronger growth. Light harvest — 2 lbs over 4 weeks."
• Year 3: "Full harvest season. 8 lbs total. Best bed in the garden."

This multi-year view is especially valuable for:

• Asparagus — Takes 2-3 years to establish
• Fruit bushes — Yield increases over years
• Herbs — Tracking when they need replacement
• Strawberries — Monitoring declining yields in older patches

Overwintering annual plants

Some gardeners overwinter plants that are technically annuals in their climate — bringing pepper plants indoors, covering fig trees, or mulching tender herbs.

You can track this by:

1. Logging notes about your overwintering strategy ("Moved pepper to garage, under grow light")
2. Using the Winterized milestone if the plant survives to next season
3. Adding a "Try differently" decision if the overwinter attempt fails

Planning for perennials

During season planning, perennials show up in the Reflect column with their full multi-year history. This helps you:

• See which perennials are thriving vs. declining
• Decide if a perennial needs to be replaced ("Lavender is woody and sparse after 4 years")
• Plan new perennial additions with context from existing ones

Perennial supports

Many perennials need permanent support structures — a trellis for grapes, a cage for gooseberries, stakes for raspberries. These are best tracked as fixed supports on the zone, since they stay in place across seasons.

See Supports for more on fixed vs. portable supports.

Frequently asked questions

How do I track perennials across years?

Mark a plant as perennial. At end of season, log the Winterized milestone. This creates a linked planting for next year automatically, carrying the full history forward.

What does the Winterized milestone do?

It marks a planting as dormant and automatically creates a new linked planting for the next season. The new planting inherits the same zone, plant, and support assignments.

Can I overwinter annual plants?

Yes. Log notes about your overwintering strategy, use the Winterized milestone if the plant survives, and add a "Try Differently" decision if it doesn't make it.

Related

• Milestones — How Winterized and other lifecycle phases work
• Tracking and logging — Recording perennial progress
• End-of-season review — Reviewing perennial performance