It is for me in zone 8, have had some patches 7 or 8 years. Very susceptible to late frosts here. I try to cover with anything available (sometimes I remember to do this and sometimes not). Even if it does get hit with a late frost, it still comes back...just later. Great fall color..in my opinion, it is the best of the salvia leucanthas out there. Looks great with any fall helianthis, american beauty berry, and climbing aster.

They are native to clay, slightly alkaline soil, with warm winters and dry summers. That said, they are pretty tolerant with moisture, pH, and temps. Deep mulching in winter is strongly advised if it's below freezing. You can hack it to the base or leave the main stems intact when pruning. It spreads by rhizomes and cutting are easier to root than germination by seed (which is highly prone to hybridizing with other sages). I sometimes lift mine when they are looking rangy or played out and divide the clumps, often getting 5 or 6 1 gal leucanthas, then I replant in fall or give them away.

This cultivar was introduced by San Marcos growers (my favorite wholesaler). Honestly, S. leucantha is so easy in SoCal that it is being overplanted and many other sages go ignored, but it's hard to blame anyone as it is nearly a perfect plant here.

Here is a link that might be useful: SMG

echinaceamaniac, are you in a Southeastern Zone 7 area, or Zone 7 on the West Coast, or somewhere else? From what I've seen, pretty much all Salvia leucantha are a piece of cake on the West Coast, as dicot said. But here in the damp South, they're a little more touch-and-go. For me, the cultivar 'Santa Barbara' has never been "a reliable perennial" in Raleigh. I planted several of them a number of years ago, and had some overwinter occasionally, but they rarely came through strong and healthy, and often just failed to return altogether. Some of the other varieties have been better, but for me the most consistently reliable one has been the straight species, S. leucantha. I have it planted in several places, and it has never failed to survive the winter (although a few of them did die from being zapped by the infamous freeze on the night before Easter of 2007). Good luck!

I grow S. 'Santa Barbara' and it has been quite reliable for me (surviving winter temps down to 5 degrees, at least), but I have it positioned next to a stone patio so the radiant heat from the patio may have a beneficial effect. After a winter, I typically don't see it appear until late April/early May.

I'm in Tennessee. It rarely gets below 5 degrees here. It probably will since I bought this plant. LOL. I might keep a cutting in the garage over the winter just in case. Never say never.

Yeah, echinaceamaniac, your remark touches on another point I was going to make about this whole discussion. Like most salvias, S. leucantha 'Santa Barbara' roots like crazy from stem cuttings at any point during the growing season, and then they grow like weeds once they're planted-out in the spring or summer, whether from cuttings or a newly purchased plant. So, realistically, I think it makes a lot of sense to treat them and a lot of the borderline-hardy salvias like quasi-annuals. That's what I do with them: enjoy their foliage and flowers one year, take tons of cuttings of the ones I like, and save those aside. Then, if the parent plant comes back strong the next year, that's great, and you'll probably have lots of extras from the rooted cuttings to plant elsewhere or give or sell to other people. If the parent plant doesn't come back the next year, you can replace it with one of the cuttings. And if not even your cuttings overwinter successfully, you can just go out and spend a few dollars in May to buy a new small plant that will be big and full and floriferous by mid- to late summer. That approach works really well, I think, and it affords me the opportunity to enjoy all sorts of awesome salvias in the summer and fall, while guarding against losing them over winter, especially if the winter is unusually cold or wet, and yet not spending as much money on them as I would if I treated them strictly as annuals. Good luck!