Do you have a place inside the house you may be able to
over winter your plant? The basement may be to dark.
It will need some water during the winter. The other option is use a grow lite in the basement. the lite will
have to be pretty close to the plant. If that is not possible try a florescent bulb again close to the plant.
What temp is it in the basement?
Art

Hi
The basement is about 60 F, the upstairs, where there is plenty of light, is a balmy 75 F (hubby likes it warm!). I do have grow lights that I can set up in the basement. Should the plants keep growing during the winter? Up here, any salvias that are perennial to our zone get buried under a few feet of snow, but I'm not sure about these salvias that don't like the freezing cold. The tag for these says: cold hardiness Zone 7 (0 F). That's well below freezing, so how do these plants manage in zone 7? Does it get that cold in zone 7?
Thanks again for help
Barb

We get an occasional day down to 0F, but generally not a sustained period of time down to zero, in Oklahoma anyway. Generally, the lowest temp we get is down to 15F, and even that is for short periods of time - maybe 2 to 3 days.

Sustained freezing temps would be what I'd worry about, and in your zone that is probably the norm. At those temps, the roots would freeze, and the plant would most likely die. Our soil rarely freezes in Oklahoma, but there are rare exceptions to that rule, and it depends on what kind of winter protection you provide. Last winter we had an abnormally cold winter, and several of my borderline zone 7 plants did not come back, e.g., Lantana 'Miss Huff', and I experienced significant die back on my Passiflora 'Lavendar Lady' (it did come back very, very late - July - in a different spot).

Also, with Salvias that like drier, well-drained soil. the problem in your zone would probably also include freezing cold, wet roots.

Our zone 7 is considered a "temperate" zone. Meaning, our winters generally don't get cold enough that the soil freezes, and sometimes we can "push" tender plants hardy only to zone 8 with winter protection. I have heard of some folks in colder zones that are able to winter over zone 7 plants by heavy, heavy mulching. But these people were in zones 5 to 6. In 3 to 4, I just doubt that it can be done, unless you experience an extremely mild winter. It's all kind of "iffy". My zone 7 Salvias would probably not have survived last year's winter due to the cold, wet conditions. Wet cold means death for a lot of borderline, temperate plants.

IMHO, I would definitely move 'Hot Lips' indoors for the winter.

Susan

You can have your hotlips growing in the winter.
These plants are from cooler mountainous areas of Mexico.
There is a thread on this forum about wintering over
other Salvias using leaves and plastic bags in Zone 7.
but you are much colder than that.So indoors is the way to
go wyour grow lites.
Art

Hot Lips seems to do fine in zone 6b/7a as long as its feet stay dry in winter. Of the 7 planted 4 years ago 6 have survived with no special mulching. Currently they are blooming like mad. This reminds me that I failed to do any laying of branches this year. To me layering seems the best winter survival policy in marginal zones since the younger wood appears to be more winter hardy.

I'm pretty sure that Hot Lips will survive in any USDA Zone 7, but you might want to use the bagged leaf technique to alleviate th4 effects of scouring Arctic cold winds tracking down the front of the Rockies during winter.

Cold frames are also good protection against winds, acting the same way as continuous snow cover. These require daily monitoring and opening and closing, though.

Finally after 70 degree days and high 40 nights, my Hot Lips is blooming to type. Yea

So is mine! It seems these cooler temps really do have an affect on the growth and flower production overall. Mine bloomed off and on during the summer, solid red blooms, but until the day lengths shortened and temps cooled off, it didn't look very good at all, which begs the question (for me), if it does so very well with cooler weather, is is possibly hardier than we think? Assuming perfect Salvia soil conditions are met??? This is definitely not a good performer in heat and humidity. I have yet to find a Salvia that is, but I'm just a beginner here.

Susan

This summer was a good test of plants for high heat & humidity. Raspberry Delight bloomed right through the worst of it and so did established Scarlet Spires. An unknown darkish reddish purple microphylla shrugged it off completely. Of the greggii Wild Thing recovered first, blooming heavily within a week of a moderate rainstorm and a short break in the heat in early August.

Susan, my Hot Lips are 4 years old now and on several occasions endured temperatures to nearly zero F.

In your climate you could use the bag method but I imagine just tarping the plants during the worst weather would do the trick.

I have over-wintered hot lips before inground in my 6a region, but I cover with a tarp nothing else. It turned out to be a space hog in my smallish garden and removed it. I have one in a pot which I will move into my garage. I have an inwall heater out there but I only keep it warm enough so it wont freeze. main reason I have it is because of my water softener is out there also.