zone pushing is a game of chance ... sometimes you win.. often you lose ...

i eventually gave up the game .... on many plants.. and other cheaper ones.. i accepted that i grew them as annuals ...

but we all have to try it .. understanding the game.. and the odds ...

and i dont recall the rest that disappeared ....

one key it winning is getting plants dormant.. and maintaining that dormancy ... they have little sense of humor about going in and out of dormancy .... those relative mid winter thaws or heatwaves can be very problematic ....

so you would mulch around the plant ,.. in the hopes that you would reduce heating of the surrounding soil in mid winter ... on either sunny days ... or those mid winter relative heat waves ... y and emotionally ....

in the alternative.. with cheap plants... i treated them as annuals ... and sometimes i won and got an extra year ...

you can try the potting ... and garage ... again.. the game.. maybe you win.. maybe you dont ...

mulch .. see above re: game ...

one key .. other than min winter temp.. of which you have no control .. would be to heavily mulch the plant ... not sure what you mean by leaves ... ground leaves would be better than just heaped leaves..

the key .. is to allow it to go dormant.. and then try to maintain dormancy ... what i found was the big killer ... was a plant that goes in and out of dormancy over winter .... they dont have much of a sense of humor about that ...

so you would mulch around the plant ,.. i the hopes that you woulld reduce heating of the surrounding soil in mid winter ... on either sunny days ... or those mid winter relative heat waves ...

and in colder zones ... reducing howling winter winds also helps ... i often used a mound of mulch.. and the plant would die down to that level .... you have to be very careful with depth of mulch... and i bet i got away with more than warmer zone peeps might .. perhaps due to ground freeze .. i applied very late.. and started removing it before spring thaw ....

good luck

ken

houzz screwed up my reply again.. i will try to recreate what it deleted ... i have to hit send first

what a nightmare ... i hope you get something out of the above ....

get it dormant.. keep it dormant ... and roll the dice ... if you dont like the odds.. or it stresses you ... move on to other plants ... lifes to short ...

ken

S guaranitica is only half hardy even in my climate where it is recommended to mulch heavily (to keep the roots warm, not cold) and grow in a sheltered spot near a s facing wall.

jerseygirl - another option is to dig up the tubers ( yes, they have tubers) and store them until spring.

Here in zone 10 they go half dormant and look terrible during the summer. But in fall- spring when it's dryer, they thrive in my really sandy well drained soil so perhaps it's soggyness that in some winters rot away the tubers. I'd probably simply pull them right up and put them in buckets of sand over the winter in an attached garage. They're very easily propagated from cuttings too. I just stick long sections in soil and they root.

^^ Didn't know they have tubers, that is helpful info.

I have gotten them to overwinter in pots in unheated garage in the past, but haven't tried that in years, going to give it a go again this year. Going to try a couple things this year to see what may work - I have one potted and ready to be pulled into storage, and I have some planted in the ground in various locations (one right smack next to the house on the N side, one right next to the house on the S side, and one farther out from the house). I might try pulling one that is in the ground and storing the tuber to see if that works.

I'm still trying to figure out how to store salvia "Mystic Spires". They've died back already but I don't think it's too late to dig and try to store somehow, it's not super-cold yet and the ground isn't anywhere near frozen (and is probably nice and warm under all the shredded leaves I just put down, so the roots are probably still just fine). Any suggestions for storing "Mystic Spires"?

I think I'll experiment - leave some in ground, mulching heavily and pot up some tubers for garage.

They're considered premium annuals here and go for $5 each in the spring. So I'd rather not replace each year (but I do love them)

Thanks all for your input.

Haven't overwintered the black and blues, but did have success with digging my gentian sages and storing them in perlite and/or potting soil inside in a cool room. I got nervous and misted them in March, which induced sprouting earlier than I really wanted. But as I already had plants started under lights, I potted them up and moved them over under the lights. This year I will attempt to hold off moistening them unless I feel them shriveling too much when I check them. Should work with the black and blues I would think, if you want to try some that way as well.

Alex

Here it is too cold to leave them in the ground or my garage, but they have survived in a large pot in soil in a south-facing windowed entry foyer for a door that is almost never used. They sprout at an appropriate time inspring this way. The one year I tried storing the pots in the cold cellar which gets down to the mid30s F, they didn’t survive, but I don’t know if that was moisture levels or what.

One year I stored the tubers successfully, last year I did not. This year I’m storing in dirt. We shall see.

i live in zone 6b and have my black and blue in a pot. for the past 3 years i've just brought the pot into the house in a south facing room. (the plant doesnt really get any direct sunlight). cut back about 90% of the foliage and it just hangs out and grows very very slowly. i water it every once in a while when it feels super dry. this only works if you have the extra space inside i guess! :)

Mine survived! I just put it pot and all in a dark part of the basement and ignored. Checked today and it had a half-dozen scrawny stems growing from the base. I cut those at a node, watered and put in a sunny spot. I’m thrilled.

Read somewhere that a guy cut them to an inch or so, put a bag of leaves on top of the stem, then put a tarp over the whole bed. He claimed leaves kept the temps more even and kept them dry. He got them to come back at about a 75% in Z5. I had them in pots in a unheated garage and had them come back.

This is my plant just 20 days after I brought it up from the basement and started watering it. It’s a foot high and I’ve already pinched back the main shoots.

This will be the second year for it.

Well, mine didn't make it through the winter. Guess I'm off to the garden center to get more.

Here’s an idea which I’m doing this year. Take cuttings and root them, putting in small (~4-6”) pots to keep in the house. Then harden them off in the spring. I’m doing this with my black & blues (which sometimes come back and sometimes don’t), pineapple sage, lemon verbena, and scented geranium. The cost adds up when buying some plants each year, and some aren’t easy to find.

I've dug the tubers and kept them alive for two years now. I put them in plastic bags with some damp paper towel and/or damp paper bags. No special measures to avoid mould, and haven't had any.

This year my Black & Blues did not do well, I can only assume because I planted them out too early when it was still too cold. They didn't show visible damage, but remained small and stunted throughout the season and did not bloom. I'll try again next year!

I know this is an older post, but if anyone is still interested...

I, too, am in NJ & LOVE black and blue salvia and Amistad salvia. Most treat it as an annual in my area, but I discovered how TOUGH & forgiving these are - by the completely lazy way that I overwinter them...

I cut down the stem to about 6" and then dig up my plants before first frost.

Then I put them in a grocery bag, water a bit, and leave then in a large plastic storage bin on my deck in the shade for a couple days.

Then I loosely tie up the top (leaving about a nickel size opening at the top) of the grocery bags & bring the bin down to the basement. My basement is fully finished and heated, but there is a false wall between the finished wall & my foundation, where my circuit breaker box is, which is a tad bit cooler.

I leave it there all winter and don't water. (Although next year, I will try to add a bit of water if it looks super dry.)

About a week before the last frost safety date (Mother's Day weekend for me), I pull it out & reverse the process.

There are usually white or really spindly looking new growth when I open the bags.

I just open the bags, water them, and put it back in a shady spot on the deck for a few days. Then I plant them in the garden. They will recover quickly, and grow much, much faster, larger, and bushier than newly-purchased salvia plants. As an example, my newly purchased salvia grew about 2 feet vs the overwintered salvia grew to be over 5 feet! One plant was about 3' wide x 5' tall - amazing!!

This totally lazy overwintering "technique" has worked very well for 3 years now.

Last fall I dug up my B&B salvia, threw them in a plastic nursery bin and put them in the garage to dry before putting them in brown paper bags for storage in the crawl space. Got busy with other stuff then totally forgot about them. Fortunately, it hasn't been nearly as cold as normal so figured what the heck I might as well try to do something with them. This morning when I cut them back I saw green stems - YAY! Right now they're soaking in water (were dry as a bone), I'll pot them up this evening.

Now, I'm aware this isn't going to work most years -- most years we have pretty consistent night temps in the 10s/20s, often even lower, and they would be goners. It's just one of those weirdly warm winters, and I got lucky :0) (the geraniums were mush, though...oh well).

(used to live in Jersey) when we used to get snow like we were "supposed to" the snow cover would provide good insulation through the winter and I had excellent success overwintering/or zone pushing as folks called it. but over the recent years the freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw/freeze/thaw that has been happening is really devastating to sensitive plants which makes it tough. so you should either heavily much, or create a warm safe place for your plants.

Update: Only one of them grew but I had to toss it. After a few weeks insects started emerging (I didn't get every speck of soil off the roots first) so I had to sacrifice it --> can't have that when I'm growing a butt-load of seeds, one year I had insects all over the seedlings and cuttings from something I brought in the house, what a PITA. I think I'll try cuttings next year.