Jack Frost's Visit

Blanket flowers before the frost

Mother Nature who can be so glorious and beautiful, can also be so cruel and uncaring!

Last night September 16... we had a nasty frost, ( -4C). We were warned on the weather websites and so we tried to prepare for it. We dragged out a bunch of old sheets, pillow cases and towels and then had to decide what to cover.   The tomatoe plants were the first to get covered up snuggly, but we picked a bunch of the biggest tomatoes off them just in case...   Same with the lone spaghetti squash, (which is now sitting very greenly on the kitchen counter. I wonder if I should put it in the window in the sun? Would that help it to ripen faster? )

Then I decided I would cover my dahlias which were looking so spectacular to try and prolong their blooming! My orange Firebird dahlia had only just started to bloom last week....)
My rose bushes were my next concern. My new Morden Ruby red was covered in  small red blossoms and looking so appealing! The Winnipeg Parks rose had finally opened some blossoms and my Morden Centennial had its second set of gorgeous pink blossoms.

The gazanias were my next choice. They were all blooming profusely again after I had deadheaded them severely 2 weeks ago after returning home from vacation.  I had to be choosy though. The gazanias are spread out around 2 flower beds and I was running out of covers...

Mini Star gazanias

The last pick was the 'Surprise' oriental late blooming lilies which were looking so fabulous!  And then there are the star gazer lilies! Only 2 stems came up this year, but each stem had a dozen flowers on it and they were still looking superb! They got covered with the same sheet as the Ruby roses.

I also covered 3 of my big green tubs. The most beautiful one this year was the shade tub with the yellow tuberous begonias and the white fan flowers! That one definitely deserved to be covered!

Last I carried/ dragged some of the pots from the deck up close to the house and covered them up with the remainder of my covers. I put my red fleece jacket over the last one and then looked regretfully out at the unchosen pots.
"Sorry," I thought to myself. "I wish I could save you all."  But I knew some of them had to be sacrificed to appease the cruel frost demons!

Just after dark when I went out on the deck to call the cat, a fierce wind had picked up. That should have been a clue as to what was going to happen, but I went back into the house with the cat, oblivious to the effects of wind.

You can probably guess what happened!
In the morning we saw that most of my snuggly covers had been blown off  the carefully selected flowers that they were supposed to protect and Jack Frost had had his way with them!!!
My dahlias- all black mush! The geraniums-  frost bitten. The gazanias- limp and lifeless. The Lilies- dead!

I was so mad at first, but now I am resigned to the fact that the summer is over and all the work of fall clean up has arrived!  We are getting frost for 2 more nights so why bother trying to save anything now???   Strangely enough, one of the pots that I chose not to cover on the deck, the one with a profusion of Osteospermum daisies, still looks good!  Like Jack Frost thumbing his nose at me and trying to show me who is boss!

Seems like so much work for so little enjoyment this year. It really is disheartening!
But luckily gardeners have short memories and are long on optimism and by next spring, fools that we are, we will be itching to get outside and start planting and tending all over again!

Last of the Hollyhock blossoms