Winter is knocking at the door

"Winter is an etching, Spring a watercolor, Summer an oil painting

And fall is a mosaic of them all. "

Stanley Horowitz

This is a daphne I got from Rick lupp about a decade ago, it's been doing it's thing for a long time in my scrubby medditeranean border, which is really just an overgrown herb garden. Funny it had its best bloom ever this fall. Harbinger of something to come?

Oxalis hirta
I started collecting the South Africans again, because I love them, I just hope I can get them through the winter

Oxalis hirta
This seems like a good color form of this wonderful little South African species. This year is a hardiness test as I think we are going to be much colder then the last few. 

This has been an interesting fall, we had some early frost but it wasn't very hard, this evening's forecast shows lows down in the high 20's and this week has temps down into the mid 20's which always means a few degrees colder for me up here at 620' ( the salem airport where the weather forecasts are closer to 230')

I'm buttoning up the greenhouse and putting frost blankets down on the South African stuff tonight but long term I think I need to add a little heated section that I can at least take the edge off of a hard frost with. Most of the autumn bloomers have finished up now and a few of the winter growers are throwing up leaves but for the most part is pretty quiet in the garden. The leaf show has been great this season with a nice long week of clear cold weather we got to see some fantastic fall colors.

Cold and clear is the forecast this week and I'm sure we will see the lowest lows of the year.

cheers,

Mark