In the Deep South, winter is an important gardening season. Some years, the garden is not ever 'put to bed for the year'.

I almost always have something going through Winter. It is one of the joys of living in this part of Texas and the reason I choose to tolerate the often brutal summers.

Winter is the only time we in the deep south can grow phlox, stock, tomatoes, & any leafy green veggies. In fact summer is our cursed season when many things look like heck & we just wait for the weather to cool to 90 degrees. So it's full steam ahead for cool season planting.

Depends on where you live , I guess. When I lived in Mass., it was near a hopeless proposition.
Here winter-pansies can survive the winter, as can many other things.

I always plant snapdragons, the tall ones. Also I have kept some foxglove I grew from seed alive. They bloomed last spring and even reseeded so I have them too. Also do viola and sometimes dianthus. Thay all just kind of languish through the winter but really take off in early spring. I'm trying some poppy seeds again but don't usually have much luck.
As for the winter vegetable garden we now have mustard, turnip, rutabaga, swiss chard, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and carrots. I might be forgetting something. I love greens. So there is always something growing here.

Oh I forgot collards. I knew there was something. LOL

Pam, at one point in time we lived just NW of Tally & I worked for a landscaper as a secretary. One of the gals who was a landscape planner & life long resident of the area as well as having a degree in horticulture said poppies just won't do --- STILL not cold enough for them. She was a member in the local garden club & always did the flowers for the courthouse. She did poppies sometimes but always they were blooming size bulbs & they were treated as annuals. She said she even tried putting them in the freezer but they would never go over the one season & be capable of planting again.

I treated myself to some pansies this year...they were on sale Would love to have veggies, but one year we lost the well twice and haven't had veggies since.

Here in Colorado, where it hits twenty below zero every winter, I'm done for the most part. On a nice day I work on yard cleanup and I have some pansies that I don't do anything with. I've collected my seeds and taken cuttings to bring indoors. But, when would I do other things like sewing and crochet if I didn't have a winter? I don't do anything but yard work all spring, summer and fall.

I always have some pansies and snapdragons. After our summer of drought, I guess I'll have them in a couple of pots instead of in ground. We're in Stage 3 watering restrictions.

My garden has mostly low maintenance drought tolerant plants, and with the winter rains, it sustains my plants. So when everything else around us has turned deciduous, my garden still looks green and okay. The only thing is if it rains too much and with the cold air then my succulents are in a precarious situation. Cannot bring them indoors, so always hoping for the best that my plants survives the cold weather. Among my plants that does its winter die out are the hostas, astilbe, bleeding heart, but come spring they all return nicely.

For my plants indoors, during winter, I have orchids in bloom so it is colorful indoors, like my mini-cymbidium, doritaenopsis and paphiopedilum. Reduced watering for them like once every 2 weeks, and they thrive quite well.
So for me, winter still is an ongoing gardening season.

I live in Phoenix, AZ and winter is a wonderful growing season here for cool loving veggies and annuals.

Even here in VA, there are plenty of things to grow in winter. Dave mentioned a lot of them - Brassicas of all sorts, salad greens, onions, and plenty of root crops all grow here with a bit of protection. I also love the late fall/early spring plants like peas and saffron to bookend the winter weather.