Barb, I think you did right with those dahlias. The tubers absolutely cannot freeze.

I just dug ours. I like for the tops to be as dead as possible but the frosts have been light and late. Now, it's supposed to drop to 12°f! I'm not completely sure about this but I think of the tubers like they are potatoes. They toughen and store better if the tops die but the plant remains undisturbed for awhile. Can't risk allowing them to freeze, however.

There are 5 or 6 inches of snow on the ground but some of that may melt this afternoon and after several hours of thawing. A little warmth will allow us to get the dahlia tubers in peat moss, out of the garage, and I'll carry them down to the basement.

The freezers are full and the carrots, parsnips, beets, and celeriac are in a pit right in the middle of the backyard garden. There is a pile of dead zinnias on top of the soil that covers them. Imma gonna need to do some snow shoveling to get to them this winter (& replace those zinnias with some nice pine needles when I can bring some more in). I'm trying to winter one of the rosemary plants under pine needles this year rather than move it in a pot into the greenhouse. We will see how that works.

I have the paths and sidewalk shoveled and finished my 2nd breakfast. Feel like I could doze off before the caffeine kicks in. Ah, winter ...

Steve

Thanks, digit! The dahlia tops were dead for sure. We've had some night temps in the 20's, so it was time.

I do need to cover the parsnips today, still have a half row in the ground. I'm not sure that's the right call, but I'm not ready to dig them yet and we'll warm up next week.

Fingers crossed for you on the rosemary!

We'll be joining you in shoveling snow tomorrow.

Naps on cold days are the best!

This is a great list! I haven't done any tree wrapping at all. I got that new lollipop willow this year. Do you think I should wrap it?

I have two other small trees: a fineline buckthorn and my Tina Sargent dwarf crabapple. Should I try to wrap it too? I didn't wrap it last year but perhaps I should have!

I've got all my container hostas in the tomato raised bed and I was going to cover them with a layer of shredded leaves.

Most of my pots are emptied but not all.

I put away the last of the cannas last weekend. I had already put away the others when we got that freak snowstorm in September. At least one of them already tried to grow back through its brown paper cover in the garage. So I recovered that one.

I put away the one huge dahlia I have last weekend too.

I stored my callas and caladiums. I was going to store my nice pineapple lily bulb but it was drying on my deck and disappeared which means a squirrel probably took it.

I put styrofoam cones over the roses. Supposed to get below zero two nights in a row here. Crazy

oh yeah , going to wrap trunks, too

Mama, I would wrap those trees. The issue is fluid moving through the trunk during drastic temp changes and we seem to be getting that a lot these last few years. I still have green leaves on a few trees, so they aren't fully dormant yet. The branches and trunk still have moisture moving through them. On our warm days in winter the southwest sides of the trunk heats up, triggering water uptake that then freezes at night and splits the tissue. Tree wrap won't help with this particular weather event if the trees aren't dormant, but once they are, the wrap helps keeps the trunk from warming up. Most of what I've read recommends wrapping for 3 years here, some say as long as 5.

Did you get around to putting your defroster in the birdbath, Barb? That may not technically be a "gardening thing," but it is definitely a Yard Thing--and very important to the birds with as cold as it's gonna be getting! I got mine out three days ago, and there's been no ice on the surface in the mornings, so I know for sure it's working.

I definitely recommend just mulching your parsnips with leaves or whatever you have and leaving them in the ground until you want to use them. That's what I did with mine when I still had a place to grow them. I covered mine with "loose" leaves--maple leaves since they don't pack down--and then to keep them from blowing away I put a big sheet over the whole area and weighted it down on the edges to keep IT from blowing away! I had my carrots under that too, and they were insulated well enough that when I wanted some I could just lift the sheet, pull back some of the leaves, and dig however many I wanted. They kept wonderfully all winter, and parsnips actually get sweeter if they're exposed to freezing temps for a while before they're used! I tried that the first time after finding info online about doing it, and I didn't have anywhere to keep them but the fridge if I dug them up, so I used Mother Nature to store them for me! Clean straw or hay should work as a mulch too--don't know how many leaves you have access to!

I don't have any trees to wrap or cannas or other tender bulbs/roots to bring in, so less to worry about here than many of you have. I got my tomatoes cut and hung in the garage last week, so they're good to go--may possibly need to hang sheets to create a "tomato room" and turn on my little oil-filled radiator to keep them from freezing with as cold as it's going to be, but that's fairly quick and easy to do if the temp's going too low in the garage.

Cut down my entire 'Hillside Sheffield's Pink" plant--the flowers!--and have them all crammed in a couple big pitchers for now, need to get them put in some decent vases and put them here and there around the house. I always feel sad about cutting that one down since it's the last thing out there for the bees, but couldn't wait any longer this year--and covering it wasn't gonna help this time!

In lieu of "gardening stuff" I've been busy with Bird Stuff! Last week I got my birdbath cleaned up and ready for winter. I got all the algae that had developed while I was gone for a month scrubbed off of the inside of the birdbath and off of the rocks I have in it for the birds to sit and walk and bathe on, and then I filled it with water, added Clorox, and soaked the whole thing for a while in hopes of it staying algae-free for longer, since it's no fun at all trying to clean it in the middle of winter! Got it all "reassembled" with the defroster in it on the last "warm" day we had a few days ago. I'm expecting it to be mobbed in the next few days! And with the two suet feeders I put out I have 14 feeders out right now--and topped them all off shortly before sunset today in preparation for TOMORROW/Sunday!

Prediction for me for Sunday into Monday is 5-9" of snow, and 6º and 5º on Sunday and Monday nites, respectively! Brrrrr! I'll be sitting inside watching it snow--feeling sorry for the birds!

But! Well over a foot of snow predicted for many of the fire areas, so at least the firefighters will be getting some "help" with the Fire Mess we've had this summer! Not to mention the extreme need we have for precip right now! The last place I was before coming home a couple weeks ago was Crawford, on Grand Mesa, and it's been so dry out there for three years now that BOTH of the reservoirs they have for irrigation water were EMPTY! The secondary one is always empty by the end of summer, but this year I don't think it even had any water in it in spring! It had BIG stuff growing in it, that must have taken all summer to get as big as it was! And the "main" reservoir, Crawford Reservoir, is always "low" by fall, but this year all that was left was a "little puddle" in the deepest part! I almost fell over when I saw it! Have stayed there in fall for many years now, and have NEVER seen it like that--and also with "stuff" growing everywhere but the "puddle" that was left--just not as big as the stuff growing in the other one. And when I leave there to come back to Denver I take a road that comes down off of the Mesa and then over Blue Mesa Damn to get to Rt. 50 (Rt. 92), and the soil is so dry that it's "contracting," and all along that road there were places where an entire driving lane was subsiding--and how on earth do you fix that, when the soil itself is so dry it's "shrinking" as more and more moisture evaporates out of it! Like the reservoirs, I've never seen anything like it! Ok, so not exactly MY gardening right now, but for the farmers/ranchers out there, it is truly catastrophic!

Over winter I need to turn over the veggie area, and clean up and cut down the perennials that haven't already been cut down--but I have all winter to work on that--when it gets WARM again!

Hope you all are hunkered down and ready for the snow and COLD,

Skybird

SA, 10.24.20 @ 2348 MDT

I got the bird bath de-icer plugged in Friday, Skybird. Thanks for the reminder! I had a flock of about 50 grackles here yesterday and waited until they'd gone to fill the feeders. They're back this morning. I've had one or two show up occasionally, but they must have told their friends this year. I guess I can't begrudge them a meal right now, but I know I'll have to fill the feeders again later today. This bunch knows all about bird feeders!

After I put down the lawn fertilizer, I did another sweep of the yard, spotted the potted cacti and agave and got them in the garage.

I took my dad food yesterday to (hopefully) keep him home during the storm and wrap his 2 new trees. I'd forgotten about his 3 half whiskey barrels of cannas! They were gorgeous this year and grew a lot. They were so pot bound I couldn't pull them out. I figured if I tried to saw through the individual plants in the pot, I'd destroy them. I clipped down the stalks and had to flip the barrels over to let gravity help me. They're bagged and in his basement now, but apparently, the sprinkler system had been reaching them, it just got blown out yesterday, so they're still quite moist. I'll have to get them arranged better to dry out on my next visit. At least I saved them from freezing. Popmama, I see the wisdom in keeping them in individual pots in a larger planter. Those barrels were quite heavy! I will be doing that with the cannas at both houses next year.

Lane, yes, the roses! Mine have been in a growth spurt since the September storm and are in full leaf. This is bad news for them. I only have own root roses from HCR now and don't cover. I may have some cane damage next year.

The updated forecast for Fort Lupton is 6 degrees tonight with windchill at -2. 3 - 5" of snow today and another possible 3 - 7" tonight. Low Monday night of 1 with -4 for windchill. On radar, it looks like it's snowing in Estes Park and Larimer County, but not Granby and Grand Lake yet. Come on, snow there, please!

It sounds like we're all as ready as can be! Today's decision is green chile or tex-mex.

Stay safe and warm!

I’ve probably got a foot of snow so far with wicked winds

Under an inch here so far and not much wind. Hope you can hunker down and stay home for a few days, Lane!