Tangled Branches: Cultivated
happenings in and around my zone 6b gardens in northern Virginia and in central Virginia
Friday, October 13, 2006
First Frost?
I just stepped out to get the newspapers and stepped back in right quick. It's COLD out there. Of course, the weather people have been warning of this for days, but we had such a nice sunny pleasant time this week that I thought surely they must be wrong.
If I paid attention to the the birds instead of the weather people, I would have gotten the same message. Wednesday, I saw the first yellow-rumped warbler and the first ruby-crowned kinglet of the season. Thursday morning, I saw my first dark-eyed junco. Thursday evening, I surprised a group of sparrows foraging in some shrubs.
The leaves in the backyard are just starting to turn (except for the ashes, which are already looking sparse).
But I still trust words (stupid, I know), so I just checked the latest weather service forecast. Loudoun County has a freeze warning for tonight, while just over the line here in Fairfax County, we have not even a frost warning. I'm going to gamble with it - the first frost warning almost never comes true - and leave everything outside. I have some Cupheas still in bloom, and I wanted to save those over the winter, but didn't get around to taking cuttings (there's always plenty of time to do it later, right?). The Cuphea ignea, as of yesterday, looked as good as it has all season, and I was hoping a stray late hummingbird might stop by. One of the Cupheas (forgot the species) hasn't even bloomed yet. And I still have some tomatoes ripening. Which reminds me, I picked one yesterday and left it on the trunk of my car - not a good place - so I'm going to go retrieve it right now while I'm thinking about it.
We'll see if my gambling with the weather forecast works out or not....
5 Comments:
They were right up in Montgomery county.
We actually had frost on Friday morning (which I didn't know about when I wrote this post), but all my plants came through fine. Lucky break for me. Did you have frost damage in MoCo, millionbells?
I have a few kinds of cuphea which many times live over the winter here - surviving 25º, at least. If you get a warm spell I hope yours will keep flowering for a little longer.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Frost took my lantana and a couple of weeds I was trying to figure out what they were. Other than that, everything is fine.
Annie, the Cupheas are still doing well - in fact the Cuphea ignea looks even better than last week. I've had mixed results overwintering them in the garage, but I doubt if they'd make through the winter outside here. Unless we get a winter like last year, when a Terracotta Million Bells survived outside in one of those molded foam pots. Trying to overwinter big plants in the house (basement) is more effort than I'm willing to make with most of them, which is why I planned to take cuttings. So, Plan B on the Cupheas is to sit them in the garage and see how they look next spring. Plan C is to get more plants next spring :-)
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