Good point about English gardens, jackied164 - I've been thinking that this winter is what the folks in the Carolinas get every year - but they pay for it in summer, when it's too hot to even go outside.

I plant a lot of things for the winter garden, and have (*finally*) realized that the main point about anything that flowers in winter is to place it somewhere between the driveway and the door. My first hellebores, which are almost 20 years old, are out in the woodsy part of the garden; I think I thought they were foliage plants for the first 5 or 6 years, because, normally, I don't even go out there in winter. It's dark out when I get home from work, so in a regular year I really don't get to experience my "winter garden" except for a few seconds each day.

Now that I "get it", almost anything that blooms in winter is placed along a main path, or where people walking by on sunny days will see it, or just outside a window. Of course, the flourescent colors of heath are best appreciated from a distance anyway - and in the subdued light of a typical winter day on cape cod - grey and dreary.

For us, though, normal winter weather will be here in a few weeks, don't you think? El nino will blow itself out soon, and then we'll all be writing about how terrible it is that our snowdrops and hellebores are buried under snow.