Garden RIP 2008

Well, the inevitable happened Monday night ... after the dramatic passage of the phenomenal cold front on Sunday (and all that brought with it), we had a killing frost. I did look out this morning to see how the remaining toad lilies had fared, and believe it or not, they don't look too unhappy just yet, so we may get some more (abbreviated) bloom time from them yet, as they usually don't give up the ghost until the first hard freeze because they are planted so close to the house. But as for the other tender perennials and annuals more out in the open, they have pretty much said farewell for the year. Officially, according to the Weather Underground (my favorite weather site), it dipped down to 28 F/-2 C last night, thus putting the brakes on much more color for the remainder of the year.

Right in time for Halloween! Although I took these two shots a week ago, you can already see the evidence of just how much things have been winding down around here, as the spooky season barrels toward us ... Fernymoss had already placed several tombstones around the garden in anticipation of Halloween, though ironically, he had to bring them all in on Sunday, lest they blow away with the wicked winds we had on Sunday ... yep, those winds that put an end to our aged maple out back. We're going to replace them today and add some more bones to the display, but this should give you an idea of what goes on in the garden right before Halloween. This shot was taken in the front boulder bed, and the following is a view up the small path to the house in the Woodland Garden.
Here you can see that our magnificent Ostrich Plume ferns have already packed it in for the season and gone brown, though one of our courageous Hellebores (to the left) is still looking quite perky, as are the hollies (see the berries?) and the ivy covering the side of the house. It remains to be seen how much green we'll have in the next few weeks, but I'll try to document the descent into winter deliquescence as it proceeds, as depressing as it may be.... I do think there will be some surprising remainders of color to show off, but they may come from odd sources, because even as I surveyed the wrath of last night's frost today, there are still some bright spots to be seen!

UPDATE ON THE WIND STORM DAMAGE: I've been talking to our insurance company the last couple of days and it looks like they are going to pay for the removal of the tree debris as well as replacement of the section of the chain link fence that was destroyed in Sunday's storm. At least that was somewhat of a relief, because honestly, I've been stressing out way too much about this particular event. In fact, I also seem to have picked up yet another(!) intestinal bug that has made me miserable for the last two days ... fortunately tonight, it seems to be on its way out (so to speak), so I'm feeling a bit better than yesterday. Hearing that the insurance will cover most (if not all) of the clean up and repair from this incident did go a considerable way to putting me more at ease. Now if we can just get the rest of our Halloween decorating done (which should have happened Sunday!), we both can rest a little easier as this week marches on....

And, of course, we are Hoping that we can sleep a whole lot easier come Tuesday night next week. If things go as we all hope they will, it won't be so bad seeing Winter take hold and put the garden to rest for the next several months until Spring....

PS: I'll get back to answering comments from the last few days tonight, and I appreciate very much the kind words of concern and encouragement everyone has been sending! They've made the stress of a very stressful situation much more bearable! So thank you, one and all!