Small, dark corners can be priceless for gardeners

There is a tiny corner of my basement that might just be the hardest working space in my house or garden.

The 20-square-foot room houses some crucial equipment, including the well pump and the sump pump, but perhaps its most important job is overwintering plants in dormancy.

It stays between 40 and 52 degrees most of the time, and doors fashioned out of foam board insulation ensures it remains dark, which makes it perfect for plant duty. This year it is housing five crates of dahlia tubers, a red Abyssinian banana (Ensete maurelli), six Dwarf Cavendish bananas (Musa acuminata), three Colocasia and two fig trees in pots.

If any of the equipment in there breaks I’m going to need a moving crew before anyone could get to it to fix it.

When I got into gardening, I had no idea that finding little spaces with the exact conditions plants might need would be such a big part of it. But gardeners seek out these spaces and then maximize the use of them.

Some gardeners use the area under cellar doors for cold and dark plant storage. One gardening friend who lives in a warmer area fills up this area with dozens and dozens of pots filled with bulbs. There are so many pots filling the cellar stairs that I’m guessing at least one zoning law related to egress is being compromised.

Even I have thought it might be a little excessive, and that’s saying something coming from a person with a greenhouse worth of plants jammed around her sump pump.

But then, in the dregs of winter, I see photos of her house alive with signs of spring. Little by little she brings pots of bulbs out from the the dark and they spring into bloom on her kitchen counter, her dining room table or as perfect hostess gifts, all from a scary spot under the cellar doors.

Gardeners also scope out spots for other plants. Like me, many of them use an unheated garage for plants in containers that probably wouldn’t survive outside.

Page Dickey, the author of the garden memoir “Uprooted,” has envy-worthy cold frames that are deep enough to overwinter pots planted with bulbs and other plants. She covers them in wood shavings to give them the darkness they want, but the cold frames protect them from too much moisture and push them out of dormancy earlier than bulbs outside.

Cozy outdoor spots are also often identified by gardeners as prime real estate for winter care. A sheltered spot where winter winds won’t blow through and moisture — a challenge to control in pots in winter — can become an excellent winter home for borderline hardy plants.

Some gardeners have found the space under a deck to provide just the conditions they are looking for.

These little nooks that make growing some plants a little easier are so important to gardeners that they could be used in a real estate listing to entice just the right buyer.

“Charming winter plant storage area perfect for a growing tropical collection. Sump pump included.”