The Hard Frost came this week and took it’s last toll of my garden. The nasturtiums lay in a puddled heap of wilted green. The canna and the other tropicals collapsed in on themselves…ready now for their dormant basement life through the winter.
Most of the leaves are blown from the trees, but my sweet gum in redcoat bravery still hangs on to blaze of foliage. For how long? We have a brief spell of semi-warmth which I expect to end sometime during the coming week. I will chide myself if I don’t go into my garden tomorrow to clean away some of the wispy brown leftovers of summer annuals. They look so purposeless during winter, unlike the structural forms of perennials. I like to leave them until spring cleanup, since the heads of the rudbeckia, sedums, and hydrangeas look so pretty picked out in snow.
Ohio November is tan, brown, and black…usually agaist leaden skies. Very somber. Tomorrow it will have a hard edged blue with enough sun to trick you into hoping for some warm spot in the yard where the sniping wind won’t get you. But beware, it’s only a ruse. It will be a day to gather the last of the garden waste together, and have a fire in the evening, if the wind isn’t too brisk. We do have some marshmallows, too, I believe!
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I bought some paperwhites and their paraphernalia the other day. It has been many years since I had forced paperwhites in the window. They are beautiful and usually easy. I will give it a try.
My houseplants are languishing in the basement, waiting for me to do something with them….which I had better do soon. I have worked really hard at trying to make the inner environment orderly, and the plants have been sadly neglected. Why oh why am I not ….RENAISSANCE WOMAN…tadaaaaa.??? I am serfer woman, right now.
