Cris,I am amazed that you can grow a mandevilla in Ontario. Now,back to mine . It is now in full bloom and is growing tendrils,I think i will just keep it inside and see if it will over winter.It seems to love it's home.Seems cruel to cut it back.Any more advice?

I also live in Ontario and have had success with Mandevilla. I bring mine in, pot and all (it is in a large pot outside in sun all summer) and put it in the basement (dark and cool). It goes dormant, and I cut it back about half way. I bring it back upstairs in the spring, and water sparingly until it starts to grow again. My little grandson decided that it was his this summer, and faithfully watered it every day; it was the best it has ever been with such attention! Good Luck!!

Okay, here's my problem. I bought my first Mandevilla vine this year at Costco. After a few weeks it wasn't really doing well so I figured "what the heck" dug a big hole and put it in the ground by my fence. It flourished and is now huge and covers probably 15 feet of fence. Now, what should I do? Try to winter it outside (is this possible? has anyone tried it?), chop it all off and repot it and bring it in? Is it too late in the year to dig it up to repot? Any suggestions are appreciated, particularly from Ontario, since we are right next door in the Detroit area. Thanks

If you leave it out, it will surely die. You have no choice, but to bring it in. I am in the process today of bringing in my tropicals ( brugmansia and oleander ). I am cutting them down to a reasonable size, and repotting into pots.

I have found in the past that the mandevilla transplanted well for me, and if put in a sunny window would usually bloom for me in the winter as well.

yes, this tropical plant has a minimum temp of
45F, i have brought one inside since the night temp
will be in the 40s(F) this week; also brought
in a huge ficus and a shefflera(sp ?)jim

I'm in Maine. I got a nice mandevilla with white flowers last Sept. when everything was half price. I kept it outside in its original gal. pot until late Oct. and then brought it inside (after drenching in insecticide soap, as I was told they are highly susceptible to spider mites). I cut the plant back moderately and kept it in my warmest and sunniest room. I watered well about once a week. To my surprise, it bloomed continuously into Feb. In March it started to grow a lot of new tendrils and soon I will be re-potting and moving back outside. I'm going to train it onto a much larger trellis this year, but it will have to be cut off the trellis to bring back inside in October.

Hmmm i'm so glad to have read this post...

i too have a mandevilla here in NJ. I cut it down and brought it inside for the winter. most of it went dormant, but then it started growing a few new vines over the winter (I had it near a bright window) no flowers though. I was trying to figure out when it's warm enough to put it back outside... sounds like from the above posts that as long as its above 45 at night, it should be fine?

Great! TIA!

Well I bought 3 small mandevilla vines this week. I live in San Jose, california and planted them in pots on an outside deck. After spending many hours untangeling the vines and training them up a metal trellis, I am unable to bring them inside. I live in a condo and I guess I will just have to give it a try. Has anyone used the anti frost spray on them or on bouganvillia?? If frost does hit them a bit will they recover? All comments are appreciated. thanks, Judith Piazza

Hi! I bought two beautiful mandevilla vines this spring, and they were just gorgeous with tons of flowers all summer, but I went away for the weekend in late October here in Northern Michigan and we had a hard freeze! I immediatly cut them off their trellis and moved the big potted vines indoors out of the elements. Are they lost or are they savable? Should a compost them and cut my loses? Any advice or tips on what to do next? Should I cut them down and put in the basement to dormant or try to revive in a sunny window? I really would love to save them but I think they did get hit pretty hard by the frost? Thanks! Maria

I also bought a mandevilla vine this summer. I kept it inside and it is still in the same pot and soil it came in. When it started to get to big, I cut it back. Now the problem. The ends of the vines are turning brown. I have been trimming them but they keep coming back. I treated it with funginex but it hasn't helped. Any ideas what may be wrong? Marg

I thought I would add my contribution. I bought a mandevilla this spring (variety named cotton candy), had it in a pot on the deck. It seemed to not do much for a while, but then suddenly started to grow and bloom with the warmth of summer. Maybe only grew to three or four feet long, but it was getting a few blossoms.

In fall I dug up and shoved into a smaller pot, not much more room for the roots but it fit. It's now in a south window indoors and is holding it's own. Actually, it grew a couple of feet this winter. Though it's a south window it probably hasn't received much sun due to endless days of cloud cover. No indoor blooms but the idea was as long as I save the plant for next year. Maybe in spring it will bloom. The glossy leaves do make a nice houseplant.

I also am overwintering a passion vine which seems to be starting to grow as well, in fact I have to keep an eye on it as it it's starting to tangle itself around the other plants.

Glen

My wife has purchased a Mandevilla and it is still in the original pot in the Back yard and is growing on a trellis. it has be growing great and has put on many flowers to enjoy. All of a sudden, as almost overnight, it began to look sick and wilted as if it needed watering. The plant is watered regularly as it is next to our tomato plants and it gets watered when the tomatoes get watered which is often when there is no rain. We also have a neighbor that has a mandevilla and she tells us that hers is doing the same thing. Does anyone have an idea what may be happening??? PLEASE..

I was happy to read that I could cut back the mandevilla in the fall and put it in the basement. I have no where in the house that it would thrive.

I was hoping to find a variety of this plant that would weather our cold winters like the hibiscus we found last summer but I will be satisfied if this works.
Thanks.

We live in MO and had problems with our mandevilla when it gets hot. My wife is a master gardener. We put it's pot into a bigger faux-ceramic pot to keep the sun off the pot so the roots stay cool. Mandevillas do not like their roots getting hot.

We also do not put a bowl under the pot, but water it once or twice every day. Mandevillas do not like sitting in water all the time and they wilt quickly if the soil gets dry.

We will try to winter ours in a southeast corner of our plant room. I might hang a grow light over it so it thinks it is in Florida.

Somebody above mentioned wintering passion flowers. We have a lovely one that has the most awesome sweet-smelling flowers. It is now 8 years old living in MO. Its main vine is now over 3/4" in diameter and woody.

We planted it in a large 30" faux plastic pot so it has plenty of root space. I built a trellis (built to last for years) into the pot and roped it to the edge of the pot for stability. We bring it in when it gets into the 50's at night and have it in the sunniest SW corner of our sun room. We keep an ultrasonic humidifier in the room next to it.

By Jan/Feb some of the vines die and we cut them off. It grows some new vines over the winter and occasionally flowers. We take it outside in the spring when temps do not drop below 50 degrees. We keep it in the yard where it gets a fair amount of morning sun and some in the afternoon. When we take it out, some of the leaves get sunburned but it drops them and grows new ones. By August it is going bananas producing 1-4 huge purpley flowers a day.

To the guy above who planted his mandevillas outdoors: I suggest digging them up and potting them in large pots for wintering. In the spring you can dig the pots into the ground so the plants are "planted" and probably won't need a lot of extra watering. Its a cinch to pull the pots for wintering. We do this with a number of our other non-hardy plants that we want to overwinter.

I live in Zone 8. Last year, I decided after doing the pot shuffle for 3 years to do an experiment and put the Mandevilla outdoors permanently. I covered the roots with about 3" of bark mulch and another 3" of straw, making sure to keep clear of the stalk to prevent pooling, freezing, and rot. I also cut it down to about 1' (I felt really bad about this) Here are the results:

Expected: The leaves dropped. Some stems died.

Unexpected: The plant came back and was bigger than ever - easily double the potted size. Well, I guess that shouldn't be that much of a surprise now that I think about it... Still, it lived.

Point being is that in some of the warmer(ish) climates, you can keep the plant going by giving a bit of warmth to the roots and it will come back.

You DO need to protect it from drying cold winds - no different than Confederate (Star) Jasmine, of the same family.
You DO need to water it before cold dry spells
You DO need to protect the roots with a good degree of mulch.
You WILL lose your leaves and possibly some stems, guaranteed, but no big deal.

I've done the same for this year, and we've had freezes in the twenties and teens for the last 2 weeks now (quite early for here). I went to check on it today and surprisingly, the majority of the leaves are still intact! Seeing that prompted me to do the search for "Mandevilla Northern Temps Winter Kill"and came across this particular thread. Would be curious to hear experiment results from others.