Balloon flower opening:

Beautiful! I love the raindrops glistening on it!

I was surprised to see one new blossom on my David Austen Rose "Count de Champagne"...and this is AFTER we had a light frost a week or so ago.

Annie, that's encouraging. The pink rose by Hannah's corner has two buds that are so close to being ready to open, one even showing color, and I keep hoping they will make it to bloom. Here it hasn't frosted yet.

I'm spending more time on the computer these days, and catching up on some of these MA threads. My late season bloomers include trycirtis (toad lily) and Japanese anemone. Both do well in the shade. I also have a little polyantha rose 'Mrs. R.M. Finch' that keeps blooming well into late, late season - seems to even bloom with some frost. It doesn't have much of a scent, but the non stop blooming and disease resistance make it a keeper.

LOL on the bag of stevia.....

Buds on my Helleborus! This is the first time I've ever seen one of my hellebores ready to actually bloom in time for christmas.

My Japanese anemone didn't do well this year--I think I need to move it to a shadier spot come spring.

Annie, that is something about your hellebore being almost ready to bloom already!

I Know! I'm totally excited. I wonder if it will actually bloom or if it will just hold in the bud stage until February?

My "Christmas Cactus" that I raised from a wee sprout I bought on the clearance table at Lowe's for 50 cents last year bloomed in time for HALLOWEEN. So it is now officially known as the Halloween Cactus (had light peach colored blooms...very pretty). Does anyone know if these will bloom more than once a year? How do you time the bloom period?

That's wonderful about the Christmas (Halloween?) cactus, Annie! JB and Gita in the houseplants thread would probably have a lot of info they could share about Christmas cactus bloom times. The thread "What is your favorite Houseplant?" in Mid Atlantic Gardening forum

December 16 SNOWDROPS blooming. I have a small clump of snowdrops near my pond that are in full bloom....they look so fragile and lovely against the fallen leaves. I've never seen them in bloom at this time of the year, but i know that they do bloom throughout the winter in England.

Gosh that IS early. You mentioned earlier that your helleborus has buds already too! It is interesting how things can bloom at different times from year to year. I always think I'm going to keep track and compare, but never seem to follow through. I've never had things bloom this early though.

Terri ...

I kept track of which roses bloomed when in the spring by taking photos. I dis-bud my whole garden to keep the rose curculios from breeding in the garden. The dang bugs have to find my garden and that gives me about four weeks for a first flush. Not all of the roses have dropped their sepals before the first curculio finds my garden and I have to dis-bud all of the roses.

I wanted to find out which ones were later bloomers so that I could just dis-bud them early and didn't have to deal with them during the three days it takes me to dis-bud all of the roses. It will give me a head start and make the whole task easier.

The only thing I have blooming, or I should say "growing" in my garden right now is weeds ... We haven't had our below freezing night temps, so they are growing like mad instead of being frozen and dead.

Smiles,
Lyn

Happy New Year, y'all, and I am so excited to have found FOUR bloom scapes on my new daylilies! These are from a bunch I bought unnamed from bluegrassmom last year so I have no idea what to expect, but I am so cheering them on, yayayay!