I have serious doubts about the bellis and polyanthus growing near Houston. Otherwise, you got some good ideas there. Other suggestions would be to sow a packet of larkspur (consolida) or Shirley poppies. You should be able to find a plentiful supply of snapdragons and pansies at your garden center too. Pansies and Snaps, plus dianthus, seem to be staples all across the southeast, and for good reason. If you plant your pansies in November (wait until your daytime highs are below 80 degrees), you should be able to enjoy them until April, depending on when your hot weather moves in. That's six months. Not a bad return on your investment. If you go with pansies, plant them six inches apart and for the most amazing look, put two plants in each hole (still six inches apart). Planted this way, they will completely cover the ground and mound up. Truly spectacular. Also, when you are buying your plants, buy the smallest most compact looking ones available in the six packs. Don't worry if they are blooming or not. The small ones will take off and give you the best, longest lived color all winter long. So, you could plant a circle of snapdragons around your shrub (even a double circle if the shrub is small this year), and then plant an edge of two to four rows deep of pansies around the outer part of the bed. The bulbs will come right up through the annuals. I would recommend that you consider a small EVERGREEN shrub for the center of your bed. That will become "bones" for the bed and will make a nice backdrop for whatever bedding and bulbs you want to do the rest of the year, even in the winter. A good one would be Indian Hawthorne, "Snow". It gets about four feet wide, but only about two feet high. It's neat, easy to grow, and is very nice when it blooms in the spring too.

Those are fine. BTW what kind of onions are those? I've never seen onion seedlings that look like that. I start seeds in trays quite often in the GH. They can't remain in there as long as they could in a plug tray. I just lift a section of soil about 2 or 3 sq inches and pull apart the seedlings then transplant them into cell packs. I'll let them grow in the cell packs for a while then transfer them to the garden. Pulling sections of soil containing seedlings is easier for me then trying to prick out individual seedlings when there's that many. You will most likely end up with way more then you are going to use. That drives me crazy because I hate to toss the extras in the compost pile but sometimes ya just have to. lol Karyn

I have broccoli growing here in central AR all winter long. I bought the plants and put them in the ground, probably before Christmas, maybe before Thanksgiving. Cold has not hurt broccoli or brussels sprouts and we've gotten to 17 F, maybe. They're growing slow, but the broccoli has the flower heads growing on it now, just not big enough to harvest. They are protected by milk jugs, cans or tomato cages with bird block not for the cold, but against the critters.

Thanks for your responses. I guess I will have to try one again, but in a differnt spot this time. Mine was a Baptisia Alba. Now I need something to put in it's place. The sight gets mostly morning sun until almost mid day. in the same bed I have two different kinds of bee balm (one blueish, one red, different bloom times) and some red astilbe. I open to suggestions.