Last Flowers

The last flowers of the season before Jack Frost's sneaky visit:

Milbert's Tortoiseshell Butterfly visiting the echinacea (purple cone flowers)

Purple cone flowers, sweet peas and blue sage's second blooms

My favourite gazanias, "Yellow Flame Big Kiss"

Huge Firebird cactus dahlias- I love this beauty!

Lavatara

We left for Thompson on Sept 23 and the 14 day forecast indicated that we would not get any frost until Oct 2.  Why, in heaven's name, did I believe that!?  We arrived home on Oct 1 to see that Jack Frost had indeed visited us at some point during our absence.  Luckily we had put all the potted tomato plants in the greenhouse before we left.  I had also dug up one of my regal geraniums and a lace leaf geranium and transplanted them into pots in the greenhouse. My hyacinth had started to come back to life in its pot and my amerylis was growing leaves. I moved them off the deck into the greenhouse as well .

Some of the tomato plants in the garden were fine and parts of others were wilted from the erratic, patchy frost that had come.  Most of the flowers in my deck pots were wilted, as well as the geraniums in the flower boxes on the stairs. The roots are still okay, though, so I am going to dig out a choice few to pot up and bring into the house to over-winter in my sunny bay window.  

It's a rather sad time of year when everything  that was so beautiful is dying. and there is so much work ahead to winterize my rose bushes, pull out spent annuals and clip off finished perennials. They say that you should leave some of your perennials alone and clip them in the spring instead. They look rather beautiful in the winter covered with snow. And it gives small wild creatures a place to shelter from the harsh weather... if you care about that kind of thing.... which I do. :)