My garden endured its first significant freeze last week (28 degrees one night, 30 the next), thus limiting my bloom choices for this month. Well, it is autumn, transforming into winter.  So it goes.  Hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens, today is Bloggers’ Bloom Day for December 15, 2011.  Here are the current bloomers.

I still have a couple of Gregg’s Mistflower (Conoclinium greggii) in bloom.  I’m hoping this little group makes it through the winter as I only planted them in September.

I also found one small Blue Mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum) still with us.  This Mistflower boasts  the longest bloom time–I’ve enjoyed them since early September.

I found two healthy blooms on a Red Autumn Sage (Salvia greggii).  The one next to the healthy bloom is freeze damaged bloom.

Amazingly, the Purple Heart (Tradescantia pallida), didn’t get zapped by the freeze too badly, so there are still a few blooms left.

Another surprise is that the Mexican Honeysuckle (Justicia spicigera) didn’t suffer at all.  It will eventually succumb to a harder freeze, but for now, there are still cheerful, bright orange blooms gracing the garden.

Purple Cone Flower (Echinacea purpurea) will sometimes bloom all winter in my gardens.  Currently, this is the lone group in bloom.  Actually, I pruned three other plants before the freeze to enjoy in the house, but I missed these little guys.  So glad I did.

I love Blackfoot Daisy (Melampodium leucanthum).  It blooms and blooms and blooms!

This particular group of Goldeneye (Viguiera dentata) have bloomed since September.  All the others of their kind have long gone to seed and provided food for the finches.

And, there are a few White Tropical Sage (Salvia coccinea) still happening in December.

As a bit of a cheat, I have an upright Bougainvillea ‘Torch Glow’ in a container still blooming.  I hastily brought it into the house when I realized how cold it would get.

I cut back the other Bougainvillea that I have which are the more spreading variety and stuck them into the garage to sleep for winter.

Another container plant, an Ice Plant (Delosperma cooperi), that I rooted from “pinches” taken from my father’s plant, bloomed well this year and is still in bloom.

I’ll leave it out except when it freezes, so maybe it’ll still be in bloom next month.