The cultivar Arps is said to be hardiest. I have planted these and unnamed varieties without problems. In the worst of winters, you might get some minor die back in zone 7 but they quickly recuperate. My winter MINIMUMS are in the upper teens on average but average minimums are in the mid/upper 20's during the coldest months but it can get down into the single digits on occasion--and they have been completely buried in snow for days on end. As a houseplant, they ALWAYS died on me so now I don't hesitate to plant any Rosemary variety in the ground--especially as they the local deer HATE them and don't do them any damage--ever. If your zone is marginal and you are concerned, then plant in a warm microclimate. You'd be surprised with how much you push gardening zones but exploiting protected areas around your home. Good luck!

I've always wanted a cool basement. I've learned to adapt to my warm basement, though, and am actually very happy to have it now. It's noticeably warmer than any other part of the house each winter and it's the best place for warm-growing orchids, gesnariads, coleus and begonias. We have a finished room in our basement and I spend a good part of the winter fussing over a fluorescent light garden down there Our house is not as old as yours, Mindy, (1740--how wonderful!) but it's old enough to vary from drafty to durn cold all winter. It's quite warm in the basement but gets colder every floor up. You might have the same phenomenon--in which case, take advantage of it. I put cool-temp plants--agapanthus, clivia, citrus, hedera, abutilon, etc. in the top-floor rooms. I use the main floor to overwinter dahlia, begonia and some colocasia tubers, as well as for many house plants. Plants who need to be really warm go in the basement. I overwinter almost all my dormant things in their pots, now. I find this method easy and I've had very little trouble with it. It may be my technique, it may be the warm-ish storage conditions, it might be a bit of both, but bare-root Dahlia tubers rarely make it for me. I've changed over to growing things like this in pots (rather than in the ground), so I just bring in the pots, stick them in the back of the cat food cabinet, and don't water until spring. I think the cat food cabinet stays at about 55-60 through the winter. I don't grow cannas, but if I did, I'd treat them the same way (until an expert from GW who'd actually overwintered cannas gave me some better advice :) ). Before my scadoxis/habranthus (can't keep up w/ the name changes on this one) was destroyed by UGH UGH UGH greater narcissus bulb fly this summer (still haven't gotten over that), I overwintered it dry in its pot under a table in the sun room/ living room, which we keep at about 67F day/55F night. It was just as happy as could be with this dormancy, as is the Oxalis regnellii. I guess I should stop rambling now and get to the point: as long as I've kept tender bulbous plants in soil, it's been easy to overwinter them, dry, in warmer temps. Are you growing tuberous begonias, or other types? I overwinter tuberous ones dry in their pots of soil in the basement--actually quite near the monstrously hot furnace. They seem to like this warmer dry period. Likewise caladiums. Colocasia is easy to overwinter and also likes to be warm. Do you have the plain green C. esculenta, or something like 'Illustrus' or 'Black Magic'? C. esculenta makes gigundonormous tubers and will overwinter anywhere with ease, in my experience, as long as temps stay above about 50F. I've kept it bare-root in an empty pot a few feet from the furnace, bare-root in a bowl on the kitchen counter (I had other things on my mind that winter), and dry in soil in a pot. Some of the others, the ones I'm aware of being 'Black Magic' and 'Illustrus,' don't make very large tubers. They don't have enough stored moisture/starch to make it all the way through a New England winter. I have Illustrus--have for about 4-5 years now--and every winter it grows on indoors as a houseplant. I haven't grown water hyacinth in 10 or more years, but I remember growing bits of it inside over winter in a large, drainage-free pot by a South window. At that time, I was living in the absolute worst heating situation for plants--an apartment building with centrally controlled heat. My apartment had no thermostat so I never knew exactly how hot or cold it got, but, basically, the furnace came on at around 4pm and ran until 10 pm. That was it. During that time, we got 24 hours' worth of heat. No kidding! It was boiling every evening--I always had my windows open--and freezing the rest of the time. The water hyacinth was fine overwintering there, which leads me to believe it's not fussy about temperature. Is there any way you could keep yours growing, either by a sunny window or under lights? I'm afraid I have no experience overwintering water lilies. I'm assuming these are tropical types? And I don't know about the Pennisetums, either. Great idea to try to keep them, though; they are so beautiful. Do they require a dormant period? What would happen if you tried growing them in your coolest, sunniest windows? I know this is supposed to be impossible but so are a lot of other things. Here's an impossible overwintering story to give you hope. This past August, while cleaning up the basement, I found a dried little chunk of tuber from...something I had overwintered at some time. It had fallen off the overwintering shelf, unnoticed, and had been lying, bare, on the basement floor. It was unrecognizable, but it had distorted white sprouts coming out of it. I'm one of those 'heck, let's see what happens' gardeners, so I potted it up. Now I have a lovely calla lily growing as a house plant in my study window. The thing is, though, I haven't grown calla lilies in quite some time. I didn't grow any this summer, nor did I grow any the summer of 04. I don't remember them from 03, either. That thing had been hanging out in the basement since at least fall 2003, and probably since fall 2002. Plants amaze me. Sue, I would love to hear how the brugs and fuchsias do. I don't grow brugs (although I love them), and I have never been able to overwinter fuchsias. Actually, I think my house is too cold for them! Are they dormant? How do you get a fuchsia to go dormant? Amanda

It was 1 below yesterday morning and when I watched the local news they said the wind chill factor in Mt. Pocono (14 miles from my house)was 23 below. That is obscene!! I am jealous of you Carol. It must be wonderful to be able to think about working in the yard by Saturday. We still have so much ice and snow here it will be many days before I will have the luxury of a good workout in the yard. Fingers crossed for the warm-up that the weathermen predict.

It's fine, with some percautions. Be sure you are done painting a few hours before night arrives and the temps dip below 50 degrees. Also, don't start painting until the moisture has left the surfaces that you are going to paint. If the temps are a real issue, then use low temp paint.