Think of those crops you'd normally put in a vegetable garden considered 'cool weather' crops. Where it says can take light frost, or put out after danger of frost. We don't get consistent night temps of sixty until may or later. And our nights then are anything above freezing. Anything you'd plant out by then in your garden is going to do fine with cool and I mean COOL night temps. You'll get sufficient day temps with just the solar gain on sunny days and a little help from your heaters on dark ones. You'll also want to consider that there won't be any pollinators in your g'houses over winter. Leafy crops are cool, because who cares? LOL. Your seeds will be germinated before winter sets in and even at 55, with domes you'll have sufficient heat to germinate most everything. If I am actively growing tender seedlings, I set my stat at 55. If I am not, I may even set it lower. If I am just running cold crops and holding over annuals for the next season forty five is fine. At those temps I find things like lantana get purplish from the temps, but survive and quickly snap back when temps are raised.

Plant peonies. Autumn is the best time and they will do well in your Zone 5. You can order divisions online from nurseries. They are planted in September and October, generally. Peonies are deer proof as they have phenol compounds in the plants that make them taste bitter. We started with roses and quickly gave-up on that battle as we have deer and rabbits. Peonies LOVE hillsides and good drainage, growing native on the sides of mountains and hillsides in Asia. I have over 100 varieties and get blooms for six to eight weeks. Day lilies are also good on hillsides and bloom after peonies. Daffodils and tulips, also. But, deer love daffs, day lilies, and tulips. As a rule, those flowering plants that bloom in the Spring are planted in the Fall, and vice versa. Let me know what you think. Steve

I also like American hazelnut for its Fall color- wonderful fiery orange-red. Of the sumacs, there is one called Fragrant Sumac available as a cultivar called "Gro-low" which is a nice size for gardens (3 feet high by 8 feet wide) and does not sucker as much the Staghorn sumac & cutleaf do. It's supposed to be hardy to zone 3. Rhus aromatica is the latin name - the fragrance is said to be a bit musty if you smell it- but I've never been able to detect it. I suppose if one were doing a lot of pruning it might have a smell. So I wouldn't use it right by the door (just in case), but it needs room to spread out anyway. The fall color is so nice that it belongs at a distance, in order to draw you right out into the garden! The species, as opposed to this particular cultivar, grows somewhat taller, there is more variation in the fall color, and may sucker a bit more - I WISH it would sucker in my garden. Here is a link that might be useful: high country gardens link

PM2, problem with HD is that individual stores don't know what they'll receive untill truck will be there. Even when they got their shipment invoice will say something like 'Assorted japanese Maples' and someone has to go out and physically check what tags on a plants says. Which is not going to happen, as you may guess :-) In my neck of the woods the following cultivars are pretty much common parts of the mix: 'Inaba Shidare', 'Tamukeyama', 'Red Select', 'Viridis', 'Butterfly' and 'Sango Kaku'. However, when grower for whatever reason can't fullfill order's quantity with 'common' plants it will throw in something from his 'premium' stock...but to get them you should be lucky to be the one of the first who sees them...and know what you are looking at :-) That's is how I got my 'Koto Hime' and 'Oridono Nishiki' (which at first glance looks like a 'Butterfly' reverting to original green form).