I have a couple of big "Autumn Joy" plants that every year seemed to get kind of flattened by a hard rainstorm, so I started putting a large ring-type plant cage over them in the spring to keep everything upright... they really don't need much in the way of extra water up here (actually, none) -- I trimmed some back one time and threw the stems into a bucket to put in the greenhouse so they would dry up (rather than throwing out in the compost or wherever, because I was afraid they would just start growing), and months later they were still alive in that bucket. If only everything was so hardy!
