I live in Tampa and mine have never gone dormant- they bloom all fall and winter. Yours should be fine inside during the cold months. Enjoy it, the fragrance is fantastic!

Silverkitty is right.
Treat it as a houseplant. You live in PA, right?
Put it in front of a sunny window and only water it when it is dry. (put your finger down in the soil to make sure)
Then in May, still in the pot, take it outside.
By the way, my sweet olive is blooming now. Smells great!
They are slowwwwwwwwww growers for the first couple of years, so be patient with it.
They don't go dormant.
You must treat them as houseplants up here, and bring them in.
Wait til you smell the blooms!

Not sure who suggested what for an osmanthus, but "winter dormancy" would be an odd requirement for a plant whose blooming season is fall and winter!

What I think was meant that o. fragrans blooms best in cool, humid conditions; it can take night temps into the high 30s, and needs good air movement to avoid buds blasting and scale and other pests infesting the leaves. Don't let the soil get soggy, particularly if the night temps are low, but don't let it get too dry between waterings or you'll lose flowers. Evenly moist is what I try to achieve.

It's a fixture in most northern public gardens with greenhouses or conservatories, you'll always see it in a sunny location, often near the glass or a vent so it gets that cool, moving air.

Moving right along to the stephanotis, it also appreciates a cooler period in the winter, but not lower than the 50s. It also wants to be dry, once a week is plenty. It grows in Madagascar in a climate with a dry season, and flowers are triggered by a colder, dry period followed by warmer temps and rain.

I think a good general rule with indoor plants is to assume "winter dormancy" means cooler and drier conditions for 2-3 months during the winter when light levels are lower, rather than the almost total cessation of growth that deciduous trees and shrubs go through, which requires constant low temperatures -- that's why most temperate deciduous trees can't be grown indoors as bonsai, it's too warm to establish dormancy!

Sorry for the long post, hope it helps!

Jim

Oh, awesome, that's exactly what I wanted to hear! I was hoping it wasn't another one of those "needs chill to set buds" or "needs chill to perform" situations. In the case of the fig, apparently it's not absolutely necessary, and in the case of the hardy jasmine, we're going to try the "leave outside til it starts to regularly get into freezing temps" route and hope that's enough cold exposure for it to behave :)

Alright, now I'm excited for that osmanthus to get here. Also impatiently awaiting blooms on my new Grand Duke of Tuscany jasmine, but that'll probably be awhile... it's still pretty small.

Thanks for the reassurance!

At least some forms keep growing late in northern climates and may have tips frozen back, showing a lack of adaptation to cold northern winters. (If the whole plant freezes and dies, that's another hint). "Dormancy" in this instance would be a cessation of shoot growth for awhile, rather than true winter dormancy as in a hardy deciduous shrub that drops its leaves and almost hibernates. The key idea, hit on previously would be that ordinary living room conditions that many tropical house plants endure aren't likely to suit this particular plant.

Leave anything potted and at all questionable out in hard frost, roots are much less hardy than tops - even plants hardy to 0F in the ground may lose roots to temps in the 20s when trapped in a pot. Sudden radical changes in temperature, as when bringing something from a frosty outdoors to a heated indoors thought undesirable - probably better to put semi-hardy plants under cover before onset of serious cold, same as with tropical house plants vacationing outdoors.