More September flowers

More September flowers, before the frost…

Sweet peas

Yes Jack Frost scheduled several unwanted visit  the second week of September. In anticipation of his arrival ( ugh!) we harvest most of the veggies out of the garden, the squashes, the last of the zucchinis,   any still fresh looking rhubarb, a feed of swiss chard and any tomatoes that were ripening. We left the root plants, the carrots, beets and potatoes. We cleaned up dying vines, lettuce gone to seed and overlooked weeds. 

Pink geraniums and mauve lobelia

I dug out some of my gorgeous geraniums and potted them to take into the house for the winter.

Angel bed with yellow helianthus and pink lavatara in bloom 

I clipped off a huge bunch of orange mint (its green in colour but smells like oranges) to dry for tea. (I just lay the leaves and stems on a cookie sheet for a couple of weeks, then take off the leaves, bag them and compost the stems.  I like to add the mint leaves to my other teas in the winter or crush them in my tea infuser and use them straight.

Ruby rudbeckia, 2nd year of growth

Jack did visit for 4 nights in a row, Sept. 9 -12. Unfortunately I was away for 10 days during that time period. Diligent husband covered some of the tomato plants next to the greenhouse, but due to a very bad back at that time, I think he missed a night or two, judging by the state of some of the tomato plants.  (The three smaller pots that he managed to drag into the greenhouse look fine.)

Most of the cosmos plants in the flower beds in the centre of the yard are black and dead. The ones close to the deck, lost the top half, but the bottom halves are still flowering and the ones next to the house are all fine.  My tall Firebird dahlias which were looking so absolutely gorgeous, are also black and dead, and most of the tops of the geraniums are toast.

To add insult to injury, this past week since I have been back Sept 17 to 14 the weather has been mostly sunny and hot. What little flowers are left after the frost are ironically trying to grow again, but there's too little time left for that now.

Autumn Joy sedum starting to bloom

Surprisingly, one of my  Morden rose bushes still has fresh looking pink blossoms on it. Somehow it managed to escape Jack's vengeance.  And of course my Autumn Joy sedum which shrugs off chilly weather is just starting to bloom and show its gorgeous colour!  The pansies that didn't dry out in our August-early Sept drought all survived as well. Snap dragons are very frost resistant, too, but most of mine were all bloomed out already.

Have been cleaning dead cosmos and other spent perennials out of the flower beds. Still lots of work to do in that regard.  Also made 'Garden maps" of 3 of my large flower beds with some notes about what to  remove and or divide, or switch around next spring.  Always something to do when you are a gardener. It's almost a relief that the winter is not far off, just to get a rest. :)