Except for the coldest days Four nerve daisy plant details blooms all winter for me in San Antonio. It also blooms in spring, summer and fall and should be called 'four season daisy! Once you have it, it will gently seed itself around (but never become invasive) and you'll have for 'forever'. Most nurseries sell it in four inch pots in early spring. Check it out. Highly recommended. Wishing you all the best with gardening in Central Texas!

My Dripping Springs lows are generally 5º colder than forecasts for Austin. However, Austin has colder and warmer spots due to elevation, tree coverage and development density. Austin is listed as zone 8b (lows 15-20º) but, Dripping Springs straddles the 8a/8b divide and our entire area could easily fall either way. It's a microclimate difference between halfway up a south-facing hill versus a north-facing valley.

Pansies and ornamental cabbage and kale are THE reliable winter annuals. Others that work well are snapdragons, dianthus (perennial species: gratianopolitanus, plumarius, and armeria; annual species: chinensis, cv. Diamond or Ideal series), and sweet alyssum. When planted from seed in fall, stocks (Mathiola incana) and pot marigold (Calendula) will bloom very early. These will all take zone 8 temperatures, though ice storms can leave them looking pitiful. In my personal experience, the only perennial dianthus species that can take our summer heat is gratianopolitanus.

Christmas rose (Helleborus niger) is a winter blooming perennial best placed in groups beneath a deciduous tree in moist soil. There are many evergreen mahonia species that produce yellow flowers in winter or spring with fruit following. Various species range from ground cover to tree sized.

I am just north of Dripping Springs on Hamilton Pool Rd.. I think the border of 8 a/b goes through my kitchen. We had great blooms on my Salvia madrensis and sleeping Giant Mexican turkscap and pink Turks cap till that damn 20º freeze 2 weeks ago. Hell, I had tomatoes fruiting.The green ones are on my window sills redening up. My aloe was blooming too.That bloom is gone now. My pea blooms got bit too, but I need to put in another crop today. My purple oxalic is thinking about blooming. I did cover my vegetable garden during the freeze and my kale, chard, lettuce, arugala and cabage are colorful with their diffent colored leaves. I do grow a lot of tropicals , bromiliads, aloes, . I roll them in during the freezes or cover them in mild freezes. I have some bromiliad blooming on my porch.

This is not Florida. Sorry. Growing here can be difficult due to our soil and water conditions but possible. Weather is changable. It all depends on our winters.one is not like another. We have long stretches of mild weather and then BAMM. We are humbled. What Mindshift says about the changing micro climates is true. I have quite a bit of elevation and that makes me warmer in the beginning of the winter than my neighbor accross the road. Pull up Wunderground personal weather stations during the early morning ( there are many close together where I live) and one can see the differences in their temps. I look at these weather staions all the time because there is a fair amount oif covering that I do. Also drive around up and down over the hills at night and it is amazing the range of temps that my car thermometer says. I have a south facing stone patio with cement pillars and they creat good thermal mass to make a warm winter spot for my aloe collection. I only take them in for the hardest freezes.