The short answer: yes. Our steel planters are designed for year-round outdoor use and require no special winter storage or protection.
Here’s the longer answer, because it’s worth understanding why.
The frost question
Frost damages garden containers in one of two ways: it either causes the material itself to crack (as with terracotta, which absorbs water and can fracture when that water freezes), or it causes surface finishes to fail — paint bubbling and peeling as moisture trapped beneath it expands and contracts.
Steel doesn’t absorb water. There’s no water to freeze inside the material itself. The galvanised zinc coating that protects the surface is bonded metallurgically to the steel — it doesn’t have the kind of paint-to-metal adhesion that can fail in freeze-thaw cycles. Steel also has a degree of flexibility that rigid materials like terracotta and fibreglass don’t — it can flex slightly under thermal stress rather than cracking.
UK winter temperatures, even at their most severe, are well within the tolerance range of galvanised steel. The material is used in outdoor construction, agriculture and infrastructure precisely because of this reliability.
What does change
Your planter will look different in March than it did in October. Outdoors over winter, the surface will develop further patination — the greys will deepen, some lighter patches may appear where rainwater has run off consistently, and you may see some white mineral deposits from hard water. These can be wiped off with a damp cloth.
This weathering is how steel is supposed to age. It’s not damage — it’s the surface settling into something more characterful than it was when new.
What we recommend
No special preparation is needed for a hard surface. Arthur Jack planters come with fixed feet at each corner, approximately 3cm in height, so drainage is already clear of the ground. There is no need to add pot feet or raise them on bricks. Place them and leave them.
Other than that — leave it out. That’s what it’s for.
