I have them out on the front porch, or out on the patio, and if one of those early frosts comes along, the next day they will be lying on the ground wilted down, yellow, and mushy. They will not tolerate freezing damage, but otherwise they will tolerate water. I have seen them grow bare root in a bottle of water hanging over a kitchen sink, for as much as 17 years. They don't grow much this way, but they are still surviving. If you took them out, root-pruned them and planted them in a pot, they would go to growing over night.
Succulent plants are also good for survival.
The jade plant is a succulent, and as such is rather brittle. A large jade plant can exist in a quite small container of soil and even flourish in a pot-bound condition. The reason I bring that up again is that so many people allow their houseplants to become pot-bound, and then wonder why they shed their leaves and decline. But there are some plants that not only tolerate being pot-bound but excel at it. On one huge jade plant that was given to me by a friend in Raleigh, N.C, I could count 37 years of growth.