Honestly winter always worries me when there is a new leafy member of the family that I haven’t gone through that season with yet.
That's very honest of you. I have done that in the past, worrying. But I switched my mindset to a binary option: the plant either lives or dies.
My worries don't change a thing about the outcome unless I'm prepared to pamper the plant. But if I pamper this one, I should pamper the others as well. And if I pamper any of them, I wouldn't feel at ease if I wouldn't pamper them every year from then on forward. That's a lot of commitment and a lot of work, and it takes a whole lot of space too!
So I drew a hard line: I'm getting trees that should be frost resistant and I don't pamper them at all. I want every species of cool plant, but I acknowledge that some are just not for me.
Every summer, I'm worried about heat, over watering, under watering, birds, weeds, bugs, outbreaks of whatever kind.. My plants and I worked hard this year to get everything set for winter - although I could use some extra fat reserves myself. Winter is the time to lay back and relax. We all deserve some time off. Trees are dormant, so am I. Gives me time to contemplate about grafting, what plant should go where next year, which ones require a repot and which don't. Winter losses in my backyard go down every year but the amount of plants keeps growing; I know which cultivars and species will survive because I've tried and tested it.
But to each his own. If people do want to take better care of their plants, they absolutely should!