Question
i bought these plants to plant outside until i found out they dont survive winters in north dakota. so i put them in planters.they did outside on the deck. when it got cooler i brought them inside. 3of colous type plant lost their leaves and are just roots left. the colous wasabi has half its leaves left but are still loosing leaves. 1 espigas have turned brown and laying down the other espigas us the fall behind.i didnt relize these plants were anuals. its my understanding that anuals die everyear. will these plants come back next spring?
thank you, gary

Answer
Gary,
I"m sorry but they are all annuals. Whether they will survive through the winter so that you can put them back outside largely depends on the amount of light they get indoors. If the roots and stems of the coleus are still alive they will leaf out again next year, and spikes are pretty easy to over-winter inside as well because they are a type of dracaena.

In addition to having them in a bright window (eastern, southern or western facing is fine as long as the windows aren't blocked by trees or other buildings) you'll want to water them deeply about once every 5 to 7 days depending on how warm your house is. A deep soaking periodically is better than a little every day. I'm assuming that these are still in the pots they were in outdoors, and if so you'll need to give them quite a bit of water in order to completely saturate the root ball. If you don't, they'll dry up and die. Also, if the pots are allowed to stand in water so that they are kept too wet that too will kill them.

I know you hoped that these would live for more than one summer, but some of us find that annuals are wonderful because they not only perform well all summer, but we don't have to take care of them over the winter if we choose not to. It's kind of a relief sometimes to have some plants we don't have to jump through hoops for twelve months a year!

Most perennial plants don't look as great all summer as annuals do so for containers annuals are usually the plants of choice.

all the best for the winter and beyond,
C.L.