First congrats on your new salvias - these tender perennials do not need rich soil or much fertilizer or water but they do need good drainage so love to grow in clay pots. If your plants are in the ground I would pile some dry maple leaves or cut sword fern fronds and lay these around the base of the plant weighing either the dry leaves or the sword fern fronds down with a few rocks. This is to keep the winter rain from rotting the roots. If we have a hard winter with a long or very cold freeze you will lose the plants but chances are they will survive. When you buy plants for sale in the Fall, go ahead and get them into the ground before it freezes - but don't fertilize new plants in the fall as you want them to slip into winter dormancy. Keep growing, Marianne Binetti