Light Last Frost

We were prepared to deal with three consecutive nights of possible freeze or frost.  All of the plants on the wall were carried into the basement.  Since this is no small effort, they remained there until the danger passed.  Wet, but in subdued light, they came through the scary nights unscathed.  The forecast calls for warm nights in the coming days so we can begin to remove plants from pots and fill the garden.

Pinxter opens its flowers before leaves appear.  An earlier frost took the unopened flowers while the leaves were still tightly closed.  Now the plant is poised for a full season of healthy growth.  Perhaps we will see flowers next year.

Summer sweet sends out its leaves ahead of the flowers.  Small brown twists mark the locations of leaves that were open for the previous frost.  Newly opened tender green leaves were able to survive this one night with a light frost.  In time the plant will fully leaf out and should manage a grand display of sweetly scented flowers.  Here we were lucky.

Becky had resigned herself to the fact that her tree peony would never flower here.  The only cover available for this plant was a large wrap of thin nylon cloth.  With that small amount of protection, all three buds survived the frost.  We will look for flowers this year.

None of the plants in this photo were covered from the frost and all survived.  The poppies are somewhat sensitive to frost.  The light frost caused them no harm.  The lily is a survivor from the days when we expected them to survive with no protection.  Survive it did and perhaps we will be able to identify it by its flower this year.

Our bearded iris had sent up buds just ahead of the frost.  We prepared ourselves for a year with no flowers but the light frost did them no harm.  This unknown variety from Becky's grandmother's garden still flowers and stimulates a pleasant childhood memory.

These lilies in the sod house also look great.  The holes mark the locations of plants that had grown too tall to fit under the tarp.  They were pulled to spend cold nights in the basement.  We will now begin to move the lilies into the garden after they are removed from the pots.

Busy days lie ahead of us as we set out both flower and vegetable plants.  We were lucky to have waited longer than many.  We were lucky that this last frost was light.  Now we can get to some serious gardening.