Here's my list of favorites for the balcony: Winter (September-October planting)- wax begonia, impatiens, cyclamen, fairy primrose, obconica primrose, and polyanthus primrose. Delphiniums, leopard's bane, foxglove, common bleeding heart, and columbine do well as winter annuals in bright shade, but only bloom once in the spring. Summer (February-April planting)- wax begonia (with fast drainage), wishbone flower, coleus, wandering jew, cigar plant, polka dot plant, crossandra, and ornamental sweet potato. Ixora, orange cestrum, and brazilian plumeflower are good summer-blooming shrubs for the shade. Good bulbs for bright shade are common calla lily, caladiums, summer snowflake, grape hyacinth, and Dutch hyacinth--French-Roman hyacinth are even better here, but are hard to find. Most other bulbs need more sun than you are describing. Cannas will grow in complete shade, but need several hours of sun to bloom. I can't honestly recommend trying to grow Lilium canadensis, toad lily, Siberian iris, hepatica, lily of the valley, and wild blue phlox here. As for the front porch, an area with just a couple of hours of direct sun at the hottest part of the day is really hard to fill. Best bets are probably Mexican firecracker, yellow dot, hearts and flowers, trailing ruellia (Ruellia squarrosa), or Mexican honeysuckle, all summer flowering. Winter color can be provided by Chinese pink, nemesia, polyanthus primrose, or red-leaf wax begonia. Hope that helps!

Thanks everyone, I thought I had responded to the warm welcome but don't see my post...so if you see it in the midst of another thread... Guess that's what happens while I was playing catch up and doing searches. No telling where I posted it! I'll try to take some current pictures and pull up some old ones soon. It's a constant work in progress and I change things around when I see they aren't doing well in one spot or would look better in another. Due to plant cost I usually start with the smaller plants so that I can buy more varieties! My landscaping is fairly new, but I can tell things are finally starting to grow! I know the feeling about plant shopping! I know I'm a plantaholic! It usually starts out with me just "looking" and then next thing I know I'm hauling out some plants. Thanks Nell, I've been a military mom for about 12 years. I've got 2 of my boys deployed right now.

Hi, Sylvia I am wondering if you have any extras for me for postage. i would really appreciate it if i can take some of your unknown irises, i would love to see a surprise by next year,,:D oh, i email you already, fingers crossed.... thank you! Wendy

Thanks both for your replies. Yes irisgal, I'm getting completely hooked and am already eyeing my paddock for the possibility of new iris beds!! sylvia you are spot on - my stolen irises are indeed Crimson King. I've read up on them and it seems they often bloom at strange times so the first weeks of winter may not be all that uncommon for them, especially given the season seems completely out of kilter so far. I have jonquils flowering already (Spring is supposed to start September - ie two and a half months away!), roses blooming and various other things happening that make me think somehow the garden has been forced into a false early spring. I'll be interested to see if I get a second bloom on Crimson King..and when! Thanks again.