The LM might be fine inground in your zone. Just mulch it well over the winter.
Karyn

LM is iffy in zone 8b. I've got one planted on the south side of my house as an experiment to see if it'll survive a Texas winter. It doesn't seem all that happy with my clay soil (unlike my caeruleas and incarnatas) and has been growing slowly. So once the nights start getting frosty, I'll cover and mulch and hope for the best.

If I were you, I'd repot and wait for the spring if you want to plant it in the ground. I don't think there's enough time left for it to establish itself otherwise.

I also think it would be risky to leave it outside. Even if it is hardy in your zone, it would probably need a full growing season in the ground to get well established. I have found that incarnatas do not survive here if I plant them in late summer or fall, even though they are very hardy once established.

I agree! I've got some new passifloras with unknown hardiness, so I'm growing them in pots that I can bring in during the winter on cold nights. I'll plant them out next spring - that way, they'll have all spring, summer and fall to get established.
I love my LMs - they've all grown like weeds for me.
Sherry

I guess you had better not listen to me. lol I figured it would be ok in 7b but then again I winter all my passies over inside, even the supposedly hardy ones becuse our temps can be in the single digits for extended periods of time. I might end up leaving some vines inground this year simply because I don't have the time or energy to dig all of them up. I'll mulch them but i doubt they survive the winter unless it's unusually mild.
Karyn

The thing is, Lady Margaret's not been officially "tested" for zone hardiness as far as I can tell. With its incarnata parentage, I'd think it should do fine in all of zone 8 and probably zone 7 as well. But all the online listings seem to default to its coccinea parentage as to hardiness, which strikes me as absurd. I'll try again in the spring with another one if the current in-ground plant doesn't make it (really, I don't know why it's so reluctant to grow--other cuttings taken at the same time have been quite vigorous for me this summer).