>the referenced article is gone

I found it; Avant Gardens has re-organized their web site. It looks like it is at the link below.

Anyway, it was fun to read those old posts. I guess I've learned a lot since I joined GW. (A cold frame on the south side of the house? What was I thinking?)

Actually, I've pretty much given up on overwintering anything; I put my clay pots in the garage now just to save the pots, and any plant that survives is a bonus.

Ego has posted a great guide to overwintering hydrangea cuttings, and that's as far as I'm planning to go this year. I think it's DiggerDee who is the expert in this field; Dee, is that right? Or maybe Mad Gallica? I'd search on the perennials forum, too, I think they've discussed it there in recent years - they had some good ideas, too.

Here is a link that might be useful: Wintering Over -at avant gardens

Thanks for finding that article. I might give it a try.

I have 4 choices.

(1) basement 50-60 degrees under flourescent lights

(2) basement in the dark

(3) houseplant stand inside with flourescent lights

(4) sunny window like a houseplant.

According to that article, I should go with choice #2, but everytime I have tried anything that way, it does not make it.

Ah, but it really depends, at least according to Avant Gardens, on what kind of plant you're dealing with.

However ... I think 50-60 is MUCH too warm for dormancy, so if you're going with the basement you'll need to use the lights and just keep things on the dry side. (But I'm the furthest from an expert as you're likely to ever find, so take it with at least a grain of salt.)

Others have said that dark and much colder works, but I don't even have that; my garage gets hot during the day & bitterly cold at night.

I can tell you that it's not a good idea to try to overwinter sweet potato vine in the garage. Turns out they are perfectly edible, possibly even delectable to rodents. Yuck.

Hope someone else chimes in, or maybe another search will turn up some tried and true advice from an actual expert... or at least from someone who has had some success at this.

Wendy good idea for a topic! I was just thinking about this...

Last year I successfully overwintered somethings as follows:

-In an unused bedroom on the north side of the house, on 2 card tables I put the following near the windows in their pots:

Begonia Sophia, Fuchsia 'Gartenmeister Bonstedt', Fuchsia 'Beacon Rosa', EE 'Illustris', Musa 'Dwarf Cavendish', EE 'Black Magic'. I grew these without any added light watering sparingly. I didn't think the north side of the house this would work but the plants although all very haggard looking by the end of winter all came back and were ahead of the game in spring versus buying new plants. The EEs did suffer from spider mites that I had to treat several times with insecticidal soap. So these were the only ones that were a pain in the neck. I also closed some of the heating vents so the room was a little cooler than the rest of the house may be 60 degrees.

-In a sunny south window I brought in a smaller container of geraniums and grew them like a house plant. These also survived and were growing nicely in spring time.

-In the basement I saved gladiolus bulbs in mesh bags and dahlia tubers in peat moss. My basement is unheated and I have insulation on the basement ceiling so most of the heat from the house doesn't leak down there so probably 35 to 50 degrees. Most of the glad bulbs and dahlias survived.

Ok now for some failures:
- I tried saving some speciality geraniums by washing the dirt of the roots and drying them out and storing in the basement. Of 9 plants only 2 came back and they didn't seem much larger than ones I could have bought. So this wasn't worth the effort.

- I saved a couple of begonia tubers in the basement and they all survived but took too long to get growing in spring time so it was easier to buy already sprouted plants at the nurseries although I didn't find the ones I had before...

- I saved 10 canna tubers in peat moss but only 4 sprouted which worked out ok in the end as I got one of each variety I had planted but with a high failure rate.

Wendy, I overwintered 2 brugs, some fuchsia, plectranthus, elephant ears, euphorbia 'Diamond Frost', abutilon, phygelius and some canna. I stored them all in my basement, which is fairly cool, 55-60, possibly colder during extreme cold snaps.

The brugs, fuchsia and plectranthus I've done from cuttings (under lights, cool basement). I've also overwintered 2 full-sized brugs in semi-darkness, very little watering. The fuchsia, phygelius & euphorbia were also wintered in semi-darkness, watered only when VERY dry. The canna I've dug, dried outside for a few days, and stored in a plastic bag in the basement. Elephant ears I've kept some and lost some; I have the best luck if I leave them in the pots with the soil, again watering very little.

I usually have a mad frenzy of dragging stuff in when frost is threatened, but I plan to try to be more organized this year (yeah, right...).

Some things want to go dormant, some things need to stay under lights. What plants are you trying to save?

-Wendy

oh, duh, I left out the name of the plant I want to save...Salvia leucantha 'Santa Barbra'.

Here are my experiences:

- Abutilon, plecanthrus, mandevilla have all made it in the basement under lights in their pots. Sometimes they don't look too great by March, but, when cut back, still give a big head start over new plants. I cut them back bringing them in too. Sometimes will repot or divide first.

- coleus cuttings that root great tend to fizzle out in the same basement setup. I think it gets too chilly for them. This year I'm trying some cuttings to try as houseplants. Hope I can find room for them.

- Begonia has had mixed results in the basement. Possibly overwatering has done it in.

- I also have traditional houseplants that spend the winter in the basement and summers outside... moses in a basket (cradle?), and spider plants galore.

- Every year I say I am not going to bother with saving my EE cause its plain and boring and I will get a better more "interesting" one next spring, but I never do...

I've kept salvias both under lights in a relatively cool basement (>60°F) and in the dining room in front of a relatively large south facing window. They usually get ratty by the end, but come back well. I've got a variegated S. greigii, a S. patens I grew from seed, and used to have a third one that I left outside last year since it wasn't as showy as the other two. The greigii I have some decision to make about in a few weeks. Since it is variegated, it grows relatively slowly, but it has turned into a fairly large plant at this point. I should probably take cuttings, but it may be too late to see if the cuttings have taken before I have to dig up the old plant. Maybe not, though. They are zone 7-8 plants, so can handle a fairly hard freeze. I've left some out deliberately just to see if they can survive a potentially mild winter. They haven't.

I'd take cuttings (they root very easily) and put them in a sunny window, since you have one. There was a discussion on salvia l. on the UK forum, and people there (in zone 8) say they lose their tops after frost, but come back from the base, which seems to imply that dark/cold would also work for a mature plant. I'd do cuttings, since I love this plant, but have absolutely no chance of keeping anything alive in the house over the winter that's not a cactus, because of long trips. (Anything in the plant kingdom, that is; the dog and the spouse DO overwinter well, actually).

Funny that the AG article generally mentions tender salvias, and then gives different instructions for Salvia guaranitica and patens. Don't know if Salvia l. has a fleshy tuber, if so it could be dug and treated like those, in the dark, in a barky mix.

I was wondering if there was a dormancy requirement.

Ok I will try cuttings in a sunny window and potted plant under lights in basement.

I will wait til the last minute to dig it up. I want to give it every possible chance to see if it might bloom this year. It hasn't bloomed at all yet.

Good to know that Salvia root easily I will start a bunch of cuttings and see if they can survive a winter with my neglect. Thanks.

Not sure if they ALL root easily, but S. leucantha does.

I wondered if there are any updates for overwintering that anyone tried since this was posted? Did you succeed the last couple of winters?