The forecast is telling us that winter will take its first swipe at our region tomorrow afternoon. The night is predicted to be bitterly cold with temperatures in the 20s. The National Weather Service warns: “These conditions will kill crops and other sensitive vegetation, ending the growing season for 2017.” By this weekend, our basil, coleus and nasturtiums will be dead.
Late fall clematis in the morning sunlight.
This would have been pretty hard to believe just a couple of days ago. Some summer flowers were still doing really well. Even the sunflower was standing tall and did not look like it wanted to stop blooming yet. The roses, by the way, had a particularly nice fall bloom this year and are not done yet either.
A really tall sunflower and morning glories.
On the other hand, it is time to make some room for planting tulip and daffodil bulbs, and many plants and animals in our region need the winter break to remain healthy.
We brought the hibiscus and begonias indoors, donated the red wiggler worms to an elementary school and gave our bees a warm blanket.
Winter you may come, we are (almost) ready!
Here are some photos as a farewell to the growing season 2017.
Cleome, Nasturtium, Echinacea and Phlox are all still doing well.
“Onion grass” and hollyhock.
And then there are the roses! Chicago Peace, Souvenir de la Malmaison, Happy Chappy and Capitaine Dyel de Graville. The roses will survive the frost and may keep blooming into December.
Some of the last tomatoes (orange cherry tomatoes that are still quite sweet); the flower of a toad lily and the berries of lily of the valley; Kirengeshoma palmata, a Japanese plant that flowers late in fall.