Laura...can some of my "rara avis" spend the winter in your garage? The rest of them will spend the winter in my window wells with at least 6 inches of maple leaf mulch over and around them. The window wells are also covered. I sucessfully overwintered a zone 8 plant this way last winter, so I'm hoping it will work for Sarrs.
Is a pine-needle mulch in winter required? Since, at that point, they aren't growing and aren't aware of what kind of mulch they have?
I have heard that misting plants is a big waste of time. This is for houseplants. Unless you can mist for 15 seconds every half hour or less. It seems to me that misting outdoor plants might be even more in-effectual? Since there's usually a breeze that will dry up mist almost immediately. Though, I think it would work in a green-house.
When I was working at Franks, we just told people to keep their plants grouped together, in big trays, with water, with the plants sitting on the rocks so the bottoms of the pots weren't sitting in water. Unless they were water loving plants like Spaths.
My sarrs are burning up, too, and I have them either sitting on grass, or elevated at least 9 inches above the pavement, per Bug's advice. It's supposed to be 100 degrees this weekend.