I am in zone 9a which descriptions say they may survive. I have two pagodas, two cashmere bouquets, a starburst. I I'm looking at getting two butterfly bushes. The prices seem high with small plants so I am not sure it would survive the winter. All mine are in pots. What techniques can I use to protect the plants that work? There are maybe ten freezing days a season in winter with some reaching mid 20s.

They freeze to the ground and come back with gusto in the spring. Clerodendrons are all thugs and you will have many, many next year. If you have two Pagodas this year you will have dozens (I am serious) next year.

I agree with Alice. TOTAL thugs. Especially the Pagodas and the vining types. The only one I ever take the care to greenhouse is C. minahassee, because its actually kinda rare and hard to replace. But walichii, and all the others, even the C. incisum, you just cannot kill.

I agree, I had to eradicate Starburst from my garden, it was too invasive despite freezing back every freeze. All Clerodendrons can be invasive in zone 9b, so I really wouldn't be worried about protection in 9a. I hack them all back to the ground in the Spring if they don't freeze anyway. Growing in pots the roots could freeze, in the ground the roots are protected from cold, however they send runners and could be there forever, like my bleeding heart vine and Pagoda.

This hedge, for lack of a better word, of pagoda started from a SINGLE plant. Now its a hedge. I am in 9A as well, although sometimes it feels like 9B or even 10A. Also behind this hedge is the Clero with the white rosette flowers, probably the one you are calling Cashmere Bouquet. Those are horribly invasive. These plants freeze to the ground every winter almost. But they don;t die completely...ofter, the lower stem is even still green and growing while the top is dead. I have to come out and trim each and every one back in the spring. And they have the annoying habit of running under the greenhouse wall and coming up inside the greenhouse. I pull Cleros out in there on a daily basis. These are considered old growth now, they have been here over 10 years, and they get easily 8-9 feet tall every summer

The Pagoda do make a hedge of sorts, lots of hedges of them around here, I pull them up like weeds to keep mine contained. I have given lots away too.
I see Cleo Starburst that look like 15-20 foot trees around here.

In pots it is a little more risky for cold weather, but you can also move pots to keep them warmer through winter. I move my tender plants to the south-facing side of our garage, and if it's a really cold night, I may cover with frost cloth to keep them a big warmer. But I've never lost any of my plants doing this.

Especially clerodendrums. I have pagoda and starburst in-ground in the garden, and since the big freeze of 2010 they haven't been frozen back at all.

Argh 2010. The memory still burns

Oh I remember 2010, the year my son got married in mid March and wanted their reception in my garden. I had to go purchase tons of spring flowers to put all around the brown dead stuff. Of all the years to have a reception in my garden.

Its never happened again. Not that it couldn't. But it seems less and less likely as the climate warms

I agree, when we dip to the 20's here no amount of covering does any good. I remember our first home in Orlando, we had upper teens and snow, I think it was the mid 1980's. The bad thing was it was record heat the days before.

That will do it, the plants are just not hardened off enough to handle the cold.

That was before my time in Florida (we relocated here from Los Angeles in 1992) but I still hear people talking about the snow that stuck in the 80's

Prior to moving here we lived on a sea island off the coast of SC. We were surrounded by water that stayed above 55 in the winter so our soil stayed at the same temp. Orange groves and bananas thrived on the island and yet, this is what we had on a morning in January or 2018. Amazingly most everything survived just fine.

I remember that Alice, you had a fountain covered with all your plants around it.

Gina, I came from S. Calif. in 78'. I grew up all over the US my first 20 years since my dad was Air Force. Mostly we went back and forth from Calif. to other states, until they retired here in FL. We did have snow in Calif. once, and in El Paso TX was the first time I even saw snow.

LOL my dad lived in El Paso. I was originally from Texas, I grew up on the Gulf Coast around Padre Island. I went to college in Austin and my dad was in El Paso working for the Texas School Board. I went to visit him in the winter and it was colder than hell!

Well how about that, we only lived in El Paso for maybe two and half years, it would get hot as hell too. I did live in Maine for about six months, during the winter, now that was cold!!!! Flipping snowed in mid May...geez.

Ew, snow! I visited my kids in Salt Lake too early this year, and it snowed for over half the week I was there. Needless to say I was miserable with my arthritis acting up, and not able to get out to start on their garden hardly at all.

Good weather is a must for me as my age progresses. I can tolerate too hot much better than too cold, as at least I can dash out for short jobs in the garden, and stay in the shade. If I get overheated, I fall into the pool.

Snow is so overrated. My husband used to want to learn to ski. We went to Colorado, Big Bear in Cali, Whistler in Vancouver, Salt Lake City,and Sandia at New Mexico. I got hurt every single time and ended up swilling hot buttered rum in some sort of a cast or splint at the ski lodge

Yes! Besides being really cold, it's tricky, slippery stuff, too. It's only redeeming feature is that it makes the landscape look pretty in winter when everything green is dead. Now I shovel dirt and mulch instead of snow in the winter. And the garden blooms year 'round.

We lived in Salt Lake for 21 years while our kids grew up so of course we skiied a lot. I was pretty lucky I never sustained too many injuries, other than a torn rotator cuff. It was fun until suddenly it was not - painful to be out in the cold once my arthritis kicked in. That was around 2002 and we moved here to FL that year.