Mr. Frost has visited my gardens

One of my last summer bouquets. The snapdragons are
still blooming, but the zinnias are done.

Friday night the temperatures dropped to 26 degrees by morning, and the many zinnias, cosmos, nasturtiums and four o'clocks in our gardens were cut down. My husband and I tried to cover one of our tomato plants, but apparently 26 degrees was too much for them, even covered with ill-fitting sheets.

Thankfully, I had enough advance notice to gather quite a few ripe and almost-ripe tomatoes to bring inside, and picked half a dozen flower bouquets to prolong the summer flowers. (I also compelled my children to pluck the leaves off of several basil plants so that I could freeze the ground-up leaves in olive oil for making pesto in winter.)

I'm not going to show any scenes of destroyed plants -- I only want to remember the lovely scenes from a few days ago. Here are a few of them:

These flowers are still blooming near the house, as it didn't get cold enough to damage the petunias, which are slightly more cold-tolerant than zinnias and other warmer-blooded plants. The 'Golden Celebration' David Austen roses smell lovely.

Alas, these stripey four o'clocks were quite sensitive. I saved seeds from them though, in the
hope that I will be able to grow some more with these stripey characteristics. (If not,
I like the solid colored ones just fine.)

The impatiens are done, but the clematis in my White Garden is still OK.

The salvia 'Victoria Blue' are still going strong, although these moonflowers, which I had completely forgotten I planted and discovered finally blooming only the other day, have succumbed. It was nice to see them for a few days anyway....

My husband planted these mums and nasturtiums, and I think they looked very nice together. It looks like you could almost warm your hands near them.

Just above the mums, some of the red cedars in our garage windbreak are absolutely covered with blue colored berries.

A scene from the Kitchen Garden, where I was harvesting tomatoes before the freeze. The nasturtiums were totally laid low by the frost.

A final autumn scene from the Kitchen Garden, with the chickens in the background. The remnants of sweet corn make a fall-like backdrop for the marigolds in the potato bed.

Of course it's sad when the flowers die off in autumn, although the frost could have been much worse (and in fact, could have been the thick snow that Kathy at Cold Climate Gardening had this weekend -- apparently my garden is in a zone slightly too warm to even be considered a "cold climate" by these extra-hardy gardeners, which surprised me). 

We still have many flowers and the next week or so is supposed to be relatively mild and warm. I feel fortunate that we still have our petunias and snapdragons still, as those are some of my favorites, but when they go, I'll be able to clear the beds and plant the bulbs I have bought: tulips, hyacinths and daffodils, which will be cheerful in springtime.

And I'm looking forward to being done with gardening for the year, as I have other projects that I want to work on this winter: I will continue to work on my Iowa garden history book, read more gardening books, focus on my kids' home school lessons, and get ready for the holidays. Also, I'm looking forward to planning my new Winter Border and Summer Border and thinking of ways to improve some other areas of my gardens. I have a full plate, and will be glad when I don't have to spend time mowing or gardening -- for a while at least; by January 15th, I will be incredibly impatient for spring to come, no doubt.

I hope you are enjoying a warm autumn and will experience a gentle transition to a cozy winter in your own gardens. Thanks for reading! -Beth