Closed for the Season

The week before Halloween we had a two day snowstorm that dropped 8 inches of snow that stuck. Temperatures were in the teens. Full-on winter arrived in October.

After wailing complaints about the cold, I settled into the realization that this was all good. 

First, my gardens need the moisture, and this was a slow soaker. Not a 40 minute summer rain that runs off, but cold wet snow slowly, slowly melting into the parched soil over days. We've had such a dry summer and fall. I could hear my stressed plants slurping for days after.

Second, everyone stayed inside when it snowed. New Mexico, and our specific zip code in particular, is soaring with record breaking numbers of covid cases and deaths. Best to stay in and go nowhere.

But. All the plants are kaput now and that's the downside of such an early and drastic start to winter. The snow has since melted into the ground and pleasant temperatures have returned, blue skies too, but my gardens are now closed for the season.

Now that I am closed and nice weather has returned, I can get the staff* working on some chores. I dug up the 'Bartzella' peony and moved it. It had a great season this year, even coloring nicely in fall, but it didn't want to be crammed up against the foot of the fence any more and asked to be moved.

It went dormant quickly in the snow, and the time to move a peony is when it is dormant. I may have set it back years, if not killed it outright.

There are more tasks, so I must get to them while the nice weather holds. Come back in spring when I reopen.

         * Staff = me.