Watch the video or read how to grow stevia outdoors in a climate zone where it freezes in winter. Stevia is a great perennial plant if you live in a warm climate or annual plant if you live in a cold climate.
As already mentioned in growing stevia, the gardener in the video doesn’t recommend growing stevia from seeds either. He bought his root cuttings from Target and Home Depot:
However if you can’t get hold to small plants, buy the seeds online and just bare with the fact that maybe only 1 out of 5 seeds will sprout. Sow them without adding extra soil on top (they need the light to sprout), keep them warm and moist and you should be ready to go.
Once you have sprouts, let them mature and use top cutting to easily propagate new plants.
Before the first frost, cut your plant just above the soil (dry the leaves so you can use them the rest of the winter). If you forget to do this, the leaves will freeze and turn out to be useless.
The roots however are quite hardy and you can save them over the winter like you would do with dahlias or gardenias: dig the roots up with the soil attached and keep them in a cool, dark, frost free place. Plant them back outside the next spring after the last frost and your stevia plant will be ready to grow again.
