If you are within a couple of miles of the Atlantic Ocean, you might get by with wintering them in the ground. Farther inland, I rather doubt it. Also, they are really late bloomers.

A friend on St. Johns Island SW of Charleston, SC had fabulous luck with them last winter.

Thanks for the info. I guess I will leave it inside this winter. I am just about in the middle of NC

This post was edited by cindip on Thu, Sep 11, 14 at 12:29

I live in Stanly county - we are neighbors

Ok, so the plant I got last year died. So I bought another one and it was doing great and had gotten about 5 feet tall. Now since we have had such hot weather, it looks droopy or wilted in the afternoon. By mornings, it looks ok. I have been watering it when it looks wilted. Do I need to water it each day or will that be too much? I don't want this one to die before I get to see the blooms.

I have to be very careful to adequately water my plants right now and need to trim some back and/or pot them up. I hope they are getting shade. A little wilting mid afternoon is a sign you may need to apply some mulch over the surface root zone for cooling and moisture retention. A little pruning might also help.

Thank you so much. I do need to put some mulch down. I planted it in a new bed that does not have mulch yet.