Just for Fun

Oh how true!

Garden Finale

It's fall.

So time for things to die away, leaving only mums to bloom. Time to dig up the summer bulbs and meticulously store them for winter. 

Except, oh wait - you're supposed to wait until the greens die back since the bulbs need that nutrients, but THEY WON'T DIE!!

Seriously - end of October, here's what it looked like:

Not only are the summer greens not dying back, but many of the others (perennial hardy geraniums, which are my new favorite because they totally made it into the fall like they said they would and annual snapdragons, which weren't supposed to last the whole summer!) are still in bloom!

The cannas (you can see a bit of one in the top right of that picture) are one of the biggest offenders. Finally by November a colder day had stopped them blooming, but still green as ever. I was about to leave the country for 2 weeks...needed them out!

Oh well, fine, I'll leave those and the still green calle lilies and at least get out the gladiolas...except oh wait, they started growing again!!!

I give up. I'm going on vacation, ya'll can just freeze!!! 

So I did.

Came back to 35 degrees and windy as all get out; leaves all blew off the trees, but still bloomed my garden! Not quite as vibrant as the photo above, but color nonetheless. 

[sigh] Oh garden, garden, garden.

Left town for Thanksgiving weekend, and when we came back got a few really cold nights and mornings with frost on the cars and finally - finally the summer greens are withering (kind of...?)!

Snapdragons, still in bloom, though! But yes, the cannas finally did wither into a horrid-colored green. Still not brown and falling over, but I think it'll be as good as it's going to get!

It's going to be rather cold, but I really need to get out this weekend so I can thin stuff out. Seeing what happened with the last batch, we'll end up with a canna apocalypse if I leave them all underground with their 2016 offspring!