In my garden, my Trevor's Blue Wonder is still flowering. Alstroemeria Summer series are still blooming - orange / red ones and a white one. Some petunias but look pretty sad, some salvias Neon, Sparkling Heat, Amistad, Nachtvlinder, Salmon Dance, and Amante. Not bad when the mercury plunged to 2c! Will upload photos later.

Finally, found the SD card

Alstroemeria - most amazing with new buds

Penstemon Arabesque F1

Penstemon Mother of Pearl

Penstemon Sour Grapes M Fisher?

Lovely. I am inspired to grow these next year. I thought the penstemon are short blooming but the ones you are growing do bloom almost all season. Ever since I added a Peony to my container garden (yet to bloom) , I realized that plants with fleeting blooms are a waste of premium real estate. Alstrolemia are also on my wish list.

Yes, true! Peony blooms are short lived, but I just can't say no to a Bowl of Beauty and when the prices were marked down from £23 to £3, my knees went weak and my pulse rate accelerated. I would say go for alstroemerias - the summer series here in the UK. I still have new blooms and I think they want to be caught by the frost. Some can be invasive though. Peony needs a lot of heat and I have a tree which took 7 years to smile at me! Yes, penstemons are really good and I love Sour Grapes the grey ones! Love all the markings ..

Just some photos

Aster Monch

My best effort at pot - love these violas

A very boring hellebore picotee. The word picotee fooled me. There are PICOTEES and picotees

Are your Hellebores flowering already, Mya? Mine are only just showing buds pushing through the soil.

floral: Yes, I have a Hellebore Anemone with 3 flowers 2 weeks ago, and one which could be Anna's Red, Madame Lemonier or even Glenda Gloss! See how tidy a person I am! This one is the 3rd one. Also I have a Harvington Yellow with patches just opening, Oh, dear! What a tease! You have to remember I have to endure a lot of HEAT, drought until this year. Humberto has for once soaked my garden. Before, I glued the hose to my hands and just wetted the surface. This year, my garden has had a real soak. Are you raining your way? Off to watch Great British Garden Revival.

These guys don't want to give up just yet.

A very reluctant hellebore double - not a lot of petals as in other double

A salvia amante - has been retired indoors

Cirsium Trevor's Blue Wonder - why blue?

Another penstemon

I have never been able to appreciate hellebores much at all. The bloom colors are way too dull for me. Here's the first bloom on my relatively new acquisition rozanne geranium. I am looking forward to the many buds on it keeping the winter gloom at bay. :)

Getgoing: Are you serious?

This could be Red Angel

These are from last year or the year before. They are so varied, bold and full of lovely markings and details!

Plus they have architectural foliage, they grow where other things can't cope and they flower in winter.

Myal, those look good. floral, I agree they bloom outdoors when not much else does. Perhaps I will come to appreciate them someday when I have more space to grow things.

Perhaps, try Stephanotis floribunda syn. S. jasminoides . or Hoya! I like that red star shape flowers in your photos, getgoing! Leaves are beautiful and flowers aplenty. Just what one wants for indoors!

I got a baby stephanotis recently. Eagerly watching its new growth for signs of buds. :) I have never grown a hoya. Not sure I want one....The star shaped flowers are pentas up close. They have a bit of haphazard growth - makes for very irregular and unshapely plants with flower clusters at weird angles and positions throughout. I just can't bring myself to prune them to a proper shape.for now.

Couple of roses joining the fun.

Yes. Let's compare our notes

Really like this one - a bit of yellow, a bit of red .. Nothing beats a rose for the variety of colours!

Yes, that is pretty. I always wanted one of those multicolored/color changing roses in yellow to red spectrum. Joseph's coat or similar. Unfortunately, with the little sunlight and too much rain, my balcony was no good for a Westerland I tried to grow for a couple of years before it gave up.....

I feel so sorry for you. Lots of passion, but nowhere to express or fire it up! You've not done badly. Those flowers are very nice. Take heart!

Actually, I am relieved that I don't have a free run and no access to land for growing stuff or my addiction would totally get out of control....

Winter jasmine is coming into full force

Daphne Bholua, a new addition from last year! £1 or £3. Brilliant and I wish I had bought all of them. Also got a Princess for £1! Happy days!

A generously blotched double hellebore is teasing me, big time!

One double hellebore Lily

One Anemone

One freckled!

There are others, but the weather is not helping and they are bit of sulking, teasing and bidding their time!

First snowdrop - a common one.

FA mauve single

Harvington yellow

A basal red - shame that I trod on it.

stained glass, Could look better.

This could be Mr Grumpy

Some galanthus lovers name this dainty for me please?? Help! I've lost all my labels!

Something new this year! Double spotty hellebore!

Mr Grumpy, I hope!

Can't wait for warmer clime! Daff is teasing me! Day is longer and sun is out! Hurrah!

Godfrey Owen

A yellow beauty

My first Hepatica acutiloba going to flower soon

You are lucky to have spring so early. Enjoy.

Thank you. But it's very cold today -1c in the morning. It's nothing to you people, I think. Here the worst I have was probably -5c!

MYAL, what you lack in subzero temperatures, you more than make up in chilly winds that prevail pretty much all year. I lived in London for a couple of years and sure do not miss the mostly chilly overcast summers for sure.

getgoing: I very fell very sorry for you. Summers in London are usually glorious. You must have come in the wrong summers. Or perhaps, you compared your summers with our summers. It's the winter winds that were awful. I was nearly blown across the road and I don't even go out often. Yes, a tiny island easily affected by bigger weather elements somewhere else. I used to live in London too. Now I am just a bit out, in Greater or eastern London. For the past 22 years, I kept saying I live in Essex whilst actually it's eastern London.

Lady Beatrix Stanley

Suffice to say, the petals were broken by me,

Have no idea what this is!

Myal, I did live there from 2004-2006, and I think the 2005 summer was exceptionally warm by prevailing standards. Still, it is a brief summer between chilly spring and summers. It is not just London, the entire northern Europe never gets quite warm and sunny for long enough Copenhagen, Oslo, Vienna, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, the Hague.. I could go on, from first hand experience. Go a bit lower, Barcelona, Lisbon, much better...But hey, I come from Delhi in India so of course....But I do not wish Delhi summers on anyone, and they are getting hotter with each passing year.

I had no idea there were different kinds of snowdrops with their own fan club!