By mid-October, my Maine backyard has skilled a number of frosts and freezes and most crops are effectively on their means into winter dormancy. Coloration within the backyard is extra prone to be discovered within the leaves of deciduous crops which have stopped photosynthesizing than in flowers.
However, there are nonetheless flowers in bloom. I’m amazed to see that I nonetheless have a couple of unopened buds on daylilies (Hemerocallis). These embrace the tall cultivar ‘Autumn Minaret’, which placed on an distinctive show this 12 months, with flowers opening daily from late July till mid-October.
| Spiraea x bumalda ‘Neon Flash’ has additionally been blooming for months. Right here and there, a couple of final flowers seem on Phlox paniculata, on false sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides) and on lavender crops. |  |
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There may be even one final rose (Rosa ‘Cinderella’) blooming within the aromatic backyard outdoors my bed room window – though it’s now too chilly to take pleasure in its perfume by means of open home windows. |
Though I would not have any New England asters (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae) blooming within the backyard this 12 months as a result of all of them succumbed to the attentions of the native woodchuck (aka groundhog), this easy blue aster (Symphyotrichum laeve) ‘Bluebird’ has a couple of flowers that in some way managed to outlive that animal’s voracious urge for food.
A number of the flowers nonetheless blooming are in protected microclimates within the backyard. Others are members of particularly hardy late-season species. The latter embrace the tall Rudbeckia cultivar ‘Herbstsonne’ (‘Autumn Solar’) and ironwood (Vernonia lettermanii) ‘Iron Butterfly.’
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That is additionally the time of 12 months when our native witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) blooms, and its fringy yellow flowers shine significantly strongly because the timber lose their leaves.
Backyard Bloggers’ Bloom Day is hosted every month by Carol Michel at Might Desires Gardens. Go to her web site for hyperlinks to October blooms from different gardens.
