Hi Gattina,

My experience is that red ones are hardier, though just. I had 3, 2 green and 1 red till the harsh winter of '10-'11 - on pots on gravel. The green ones rotted in the middle and fell apart first. The red one stayed on till spring but just faded away. I do think it was the very wet weather afterwards that rotted them and not the -17C temps in themselves.

Thank you Kildermorie - just the information I needed. Brilliant. I prefer the red ones, anyway!

We have red and green ones although they are in the ground itself, they survived the winters here in the NE, if you have space and don't want to put them into the ground permanently can you sink the pots in a corner of the garden somewhere in the winter to stop the roots freezing?
My mother wraps bubble wrap and straw round lots of her pot growing plants, then stands them all together near the wall of her house for the winter- has done for years. It's quite sheltered but North facing, she has very few loses, mainly Acers, Fushias (not hardy ones), Clematis, Ferns, even some years indoor Geraniums.
She's in the NE England and it does get pretty cold and wet here.

According to the RHS, the green version is slightly hardier than the red, but its marginal.

Gattina, I'm of the opinion that the green varieties are the most hardy but I would imagine that hardiness might not be such a problem in Italy. Although they make a good dot plant the problem is that they want to become trees, so unless you are prepared to keep potting them on into bigger pots or have a spot in mind to plant them as trees in a few years' time, then I would think of something else.

Jimmy, we have much colder winters than you do - we're up in the mountains! (see my 2 metre deep snow pictures). To be honest, I can't see me ever wanting to plant them out - they just wouldn't survive, and long before they outgrow the pots, I shall probably have managed to kill 'em off, anyway! The tubs usually go against the stone house wall in winter, and are wrapped in sacking, but this last year, nothing but carnations survived. Could it be a combination of the cold and dampness? We have relatively dry winters, usually.