Last Bloom Standing

At this point in the season, while most folks are putting their gardens to bed, we're usually feeling smug because we have plenty of cold-tolerant crops like brussel sprouts, broccoli romanescu, and maybe an odd-colored cauliflower or two to carry us for another month or so.  But this year, gloom has replaced our typical lack of humility. The wet weather brought the bugs and the bugs got all those crops, so we're left with prematurely empty beds, one healthy looking stand of chard, and some withering tomato vines with a few fruit we're trying to coax into late ripening.  

Sad, empty beds

C'mon, you can ripen before the frost!

Chard making it's last stand

The one bright spot is some very perky looking radicchio starting to head up in the cold frame.

Radicchio head-to-head in the cold frame

But for the most part this is the point where the garden "... is "fall'n into the sere," to borrow from Shakespeare (Macbeth Act V, Scene III). Unlike Macbeth, however, we can console ourselves with happier things than the curses "not loud, but deep" that await him later in the act.  


We find our solace among the late blooming anemones.  As everything else in the garden becomes one with the mulch, the anemones rise, statuesque above their leaves, to deliver a welcome burst of color that will last into November.  Their brilliance comes just as the spectre of winter starts to chill the heart, and helps ease that brutal transition.

Anemone light up the hill in mid-October

We have several varieties -- Queen Charlotte, Prince Henry, and several without pedigrees that seem to have just shown up.  If they weren't so gorgeous, I'd have to call them invasive, because they spread enthusiastically with total disregard for barriers  -- even stone walls.  They are also capable of flight.  I found a renegade anemone this fall clear on the other side of the house in the front garden.  Since they propagate by tentacle-like roots, I can't quite figure out how that one migrated.  But I've granted it a reprieve because it's as lovely as its disconnected relatives.

These plants have rather delicate blooms, so they're best when they're massed, and when they're placed where you can get up close to admire them.

A mass of white anemones -- I think these may be "Prince Henry"

I think this is "Queen Charlotte" -- the flowers can be up to 4" across!

Anemones have many different blossom types -- here's a delicate pink single bloom

... and another semi-double white one

Anemone pile!

We also get one last gasp of beauty from our standard hydrangea located halfway up the hill.  It was filled with beautiful white panicles just a month ago, but the cooler nights have brought a blush to its petals.  It's a perfect complement to the mixed pinks and whites of the anemones that flank it both above and below.
 

Hydrangea showing off on the hill

 

Of course, this is good reason to show off

Finally, there's always somebody who doesn't get the word.  In this case, it's another hydrangea -- one of the big macrophyllas above the shed on the right side of the backyard.  It's got one last big blue pompom that just opened last week.  Just a wee bit late!

There it is on top!

Clearly, that plant get points for enthusiasm in the contest for for "Last Bloom Standing!"