And in my garden, there is not much to show for it, though sedums, Silver Mound artemesia, and the “October Skies” aromatic aster are above ground and looking tidy and fresh.
On Wednesday overnight, we had a hard freeze to 27 F. That afternoon, I looked out the window of the place I work, and it was snowing.
But today was sunny and 70, and that meant a plant holiday for all the new plants from Louisiana and California nurseries which had just come out of the box. Out they went, along with the hostages and the minimally content who had spent six months in a south window. And now the plant shuttle begins. Over sixty daytime? Outside! Under 40 at night? Back in.
Wintering over desirable tender plants is easy in theory, but one finds that the tender sub shrubs such as salvias pine for the outside, and if placed near a sunny warm window spend the winter deprived and desperate. Warm enough to grow, but not enough sun to thrive. As is evident in the photo below.
My sister had better luck keeping her salvias in an unheated mudroom that faces east. She did not feed them false hopes, and as the days grew longer, they came out of suspended animation looking optimistic.
I did have plants that did well inside. I made my self a little forest of Nicotianas by pulling up off shoots and replanting them, and now there is no need to buy new ones from the California nurseries.
Others that did well were the Mexican Petunias(Ruellia), the “Diamond Frost” euphorbias, the “Gartenmeister” orange fuschias, the Sinningias, Begonia grandis, and a Cuban Oregano.
Those stunted looking salvias will survive , and if I am lucky they will be larger and more impressive than the cuttings they came as last spring.
My neighbor Dave, who went out trout fishing this morning with his grandson, knocked a bit earlier and handed me two Brook trout for my supper.
I grew up with fisherman brothers. Three of them. They sniffed at Rainbow trout and the Brown trout, accusing the latter of being such a lowlife that it “would live in a sewer”.
The Brook trout they never demeaned.
I never caught a trout. I have caught Walleye in the Connecticut River in my younger years, though later my fishing life was on the Gulf of Mexico. But that is another story-
Gardening On Granite 