Hi Cassiope If you have left your plants just in their pots in storage you will no doubt have lost them to the frost even if they were in the garage. What I would suggest is the following; 1) Stop giving your plants water at least a couple of weeks BEFORE you want to cut them back; 2) Cut your plants back by approximately 2 thirds (making sure that they have at least a couple of buds below the cut; 3) When you cut the plants back use a PVA glue on the cuts to stop the sap bleeding onto the stems; 4) After the glue has set, you should wrap the plants in their pots in newspaper or preferably garden fleece; 5) Place the wrapped plants in a large box which has had all sides (including top and bottom) covered with some form of insulating material (sheets of polystyrene are good for this and if all else fails you can use the material used for packing electrical appliances or the small beads that are sometimes used to fill cushions or bean bags) anything that will insulate. The plants will need checking a couple of times during the winter to make sure that they do not become too dry. Water sparingly and replace the plants until you are happy that you can bring the plants out of their 'hibernation' and start them back into growth. I would like to say that you could keep the plants growing in the house overwinter but unless you have all the conditions correct you will either have stunted growth or leggy growth. Much better to try and give the plants a rest during this period. Sorry I can't be of much help .....but -35 now thats cold!!!!. Tight....

Thank you for the holiday wishes and same to you, GarnerGarden! I think that the peppermint would have been happier, outside. The indoor air is probably too dry for it and my peppermint, and several other mints, do fine outdoors through the winter. Obviously, it's in a pot so that puts the roots more at risk to the cold. Perhaps, you could sink it, pot and all, in a hole outdoors. The rosemary needs winter protection. Some of the lavender does but I don't really know. Don't know about the proper care of the lemon, either ... Parsley is a biennial. I sow parsley seed every year for fresh plants. I think it will, more or less, be okay on its own. When I was a kid, we had a little parsley patch that always had some nice leaves. I think only some of the plants were flowering each year and that there were several so that they were always at different stages of development. About the rosemary, it would probably need to go dormant, or nearly so. I would lose as many as half my rosemary plants trying to keep them in a too warm basement over winter. I finally began keeping them on the floor of an unheated greenhouse and covering the plants when they would be going much below freezing. hope some of this helps a little. Steve

Good show, come March you can take all sorts of cuttings! I have easily rooted cuttings in ProMix in approximately ten days or so. Before the ground had froze, I dug up several small volunteer petunia seedlings and potted them up, as I had been quite impressed with the bloom color and variation of some of them, too good to let perish! These little guys are in the basement window, while my large stock plants rest in the attached unheated garage where the temps hovers just above freezing.

I live in southern New England and discovered winter sowing in 2007. That year I winter sowed perennials, trees and shrubs for a total of 533 milk jugs. All but a few sprouted so I had lots of work to do when they were large enough to plant. I had previously designed my garden beds based on their sun exposure so at least I had somewhere to plant everything! I winter sowed again several years subsequent until all my garden beds were full to overflowing with perennials. Here in New England the winters are cold and dark so winter sowing offers a gardening activity when the hours of daylight are at their shortest. I love having my hands in dirt so it was the perfect winter antidote for me. I'm happy to read that you've discovered that as well.