For what It's worth the people I buy from say if you don't have cold weather, you should stick to evergreen or semi-evergreen.
The dormant ones need a period of dormancy to recover. They may grow, but will not be as productive or live as long as they will in an area with cold weather.
I'm smack dab in the middle of zone 7 and most of my plants are dormant. But I am looking more at evergreens. It seems like they may have a head start over the dormant in the spring and we had a very mild winter this year.
But it seems there are a lot more choices in the dormant category.
