I don't think anybody is getting a proper winter this year. We have lots of snow (we've NEVER not had snow by the end of December...this is north-eastern Ontario!) but it keeps melting down by half (it seems to stay at a level of two to three feet anyway, because it snows EVERY DAY)...it's freakishly mild. All winter. Ottawa had to cancel Winterlude, more or less (they have international ice carving competition there during the festival, and skating on the canal and so on...but the canal isn't safe this year as it never froze hard enough for the ice to be really thick.)

It's very weird. Though if I'd known, I'd have planted crocosmia this past summer. It would have survived the winter and might have come back strong enough to survive our REAL winters after that.