Here in USA, we had warm December till middle of the January. We got blizzard at the end of the January and tons of snow. However, we did not experienced significant freeze as I had experienced in 2010. March was seasonably warm/cold, but I had two snaps of early morning freezing, which seems to take a toll on hydrangeas which were already budded out. Even encore azalea suffered from the snap, and they started to drop leaves. I have two types of azalea, one which is evergreen and others that shed leaves but their flowers are very fragrant.
So far the big success were camellias which produced tons of flowers. I do not see my rhodos to bloom this year. I noticed in the past that they produce more flowers every other year. One year I will get couple buds, and then next year they will be all covered with flowers. The only enemy for rhodos and all other evergreens are squirrels and chipmunks because they like to build a den under them. I ordered climbing rose for my trellis as April is the best month to plant them. I have one rose that never looked good and my mom cut it down and rejuvenated it two years ago, but still it looks sick.