Right now at this house I have glads, ginger lilies and irises. My other house I had glads, dafs, hyacinths, crocus, and irises. My friend has loads and loads of just about every kind of bulb their is to grow here and then some that don't believe it or not. She grows almost nothing but bulb type plants. I told her she needs to get some perenials in her garden and gave her a BS mag to take home. Now she told me she has a bunch picked out to order. I got her hooked now! Meghan

Depends on how cold. If it's just a bit below 60, you should be ok. You could pull them up closer to a house for extra protection, or if it's easy enough move it in and out. I do both in spring to get a jump on growing season here. We have a brick town home with an enclosed back yard and many nights they just stay right next to the brick. If it's repeated nights, or 50 or below, your basil will stagnate and quit growing. Keep in mind that basil is annual, so you can extend it for a while, but there's a point to just start new, from seed or cuttings. I say this having harvested all mine today due to expected frost tonight, so your 60 in Dec is sounding nice!

Winter 2013/2014 was a brutal winter for Asian wisterias! Neither my Japanese or Chinese wisteria 'trees' bloomed last spring and the Chinese one, which usually has a smaller secondary summer bloom, produced only a couple of wimpy summer blooms. This winter has also been hard so I fear there may be no bloom this spring either - although it's to soon to tell yet.... Mine are much younger plants that yours. I've never had any dieback of the woody branches like you are describing - I wonder if that is due to the age more than winter kill...? They are known to be able to live for hundreds of years so I think it's likely to be able to survive a reasonable amount of damage! If the graft union a visible bulge? i.e can you tell for sure that some of the new growth came from below the graft? If so, I'd definitely get rid of the stems arising from below the union. The concrete patio would certainly be a limiting factor in trying to get rid of the vine if it is dead. I'd be inclined to wait to see what is alive or clearly dead this spring. Anything clearly dead I'd cut off as low down as possible. Anything living but of dubious origin in relation to the graft, I'd also remove. If that means the vast majority of it is gone, then I'd remove the rest as best I could - and probably replant with something else entirely - one or more of the vigorous and hardy clematis perhaps. If I still wanted a wisteria, I'd plant one (on a very sturdy upright support) as a free-standing tree. It is much easier to prune and control them when they are kept short in a tree form than it is to climb up on a pergola to prune IMO! I'll keep my fingers crossed for the survival of both our wisterias....:-)

You have the right idea in using the hot summer months for cleaning and preparing, I do the same and limit my time outdoors. Flowers are a good way to start, at this time you would do great with cuttings if you can get some. Some of the easy flowers from seed are marigolds, zinnias, and they keep coming back in the same spots, when colder you can try nasturtiums. Strawberries are not that easy because they can get buggy, I always pick them in the organic farm near my house, if you are close to Plant City you can do the same. I visited a house in Tampa from a gardening friend and he had some very tasty wild strawberries, he said they were from seed and gave me some, I would consider growing those because you cannot buy them. If you are planning to grow winter squash, your best bet would be an acorn variety like Table Dainty, they do well and are tasty. Silvia