As the season comes to a close, there are many changes in the gardens. Some plants in the beds have turned beautiful colors--peonies, bergenia, grape leaves, hosta, and the remaining lily stems. I'll keep them for another few weeks or more and then cut down everything that has yellowed or turned colors. Other plants, such as poppy, hellebore, columbine, and the new lupine shoots, have started their new cycles and are nice and green, and I won't do anything to them for the winter. I love the seed heads of the Love-In-A-Mist and the Clematis. And, the Bush Delphinium are still blooming, as well as the Roses, Lavender, Mums and Monkshood. We had a hard killing frost last night and the dahlia foliage is black this morning. To over-winter your dahlia tubers, keep them in the ground for two weeks after a killing frost. Then gently dig them up, shake them off, and dry upside down in a dry area for at least two days. Then store in a box in vermiculite, peat moss, or pearlite in a cool, dark area until early spring. Check on them from time to time to see if they are drying out or getting moldy. If so, adjust things--add a cup of water to the top of the box if dry, if moldy, spread out and dry a little more. Then they'll be ready to replant in the spring, after danger of frost is past. If you need to divide the tubers, do it at planting time. If they don't make it, the tubers are fairly inexpensive to replace. It feels good knowing that I got everything done in the beds that I needed to before the hard frost. Now I'll just sit back and enjoy the rest of the fall and the winter months!
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