We might grt a freeze tonight. i hate to lose the beautiful chartreuse and red coleus by my front door. i dont do well by house plants so won’t rescue them.

One good thing about having frosts is that you can to start over each year. I do not get to do that here in Los Angeles, and my back yard now is pretty much out of control, and it is very difficult to get a good landscaper these days. My yards (especially the back yard) require extensive upkeep all year, and I would like to be able to take a break once in a while.

I posted pics yesterday of my gorgeous impatiens which looked just like they did mid-summer. But right now the temp is 35 so I guess they're toast. All the trees in my yard have leaves. The magnolia's are green as summer. October was 8 degrees above average and this is the first time it's been below 40 since early April. I brought my fern and begonia in and as I was returning from the trail I spied a gorgeous fern in a garbage can so I retrieved it and it's in my basement greenhouse now.

I mulched my roses and hydrangeas, planted lots of daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths to add to the ones already in the ground, and brought Kevin, my Venus Fly Trap, inside to stay warm. I am not sad all the work is done. I love my gardens but all my edible plants stopped producing long ago and I am ready for the rest to take a break and go dormant for awhile while I focus on holiday fun and winter snuggles. Especially the roses. Fiddly little divas.

I hope Kevin stays alive. I do not know much about Venus fly traps but I like it and hope I can keep him going until I can put him back outside.

This might be the last week for my patio tomatoes. This is the first year that I'm still picking ripe tomatoes in November. We're in 6B/7A but October was much warmer than normal.

I don't think we got a frost last night here, but just in case, I harvested a bunch of parsley and froze it for the winter. It didn't do so well over the summer but it was growing like mad this fall.

It's 29F here this morning so I expect to see a heavy first frost on the ground when the sun rises. I picked 1 1/2 bushel baskets of peppers last weekend but haven't done anything with them yet other than look at them. I still have a lot of garden clean up to do.

Everything buttoned up and ready for winter here. Kind of sad, and kind of relieved. We

are still under a drought and I am tired of watering things, I guess. Have had a couple

of hard freezes...Winter is next.

brought my jades & rubber plant in yesterday... wah, wah... our warm October is gone. time to compost the remaining annuals, those begonias just never stop!, and break out the rakes!

I'm waiting to make sure the monarch butterflies are gone. I saw one on 10/31.

It was 28F when we went running yesterday. The heats been on! There are still spots of snow that haven't melted from last weeks flurries. I LOVE Winter! ♥ We didn't see a soul when we were out.....we had the whole place to ourselves. YES!

It's been more 'fallish' this year than we've experienced in the past years since I've lived here. Not sure what that means... perhaps a cooler winter. Just hoping we don't have a repeat of that week of February weather with associated power outages.

I don't plant a whole lot of tropicals so didn't lose much last year. I need to go out and give all of my plants a haircut. A lot of plants like vinca and zinnias reseeded themselves in my flower beds this year. It's growing over the edges of the rocks. I need to remove them and plant some pansies and snap dragons. Winter is usually pretty mild here. I don't bring plants inside until I see a forecast that calls for it.

My annuals are doomed, for sure. it went down into the 30s here last night and although they seem to have survived the cold, they wont for long. I am tempted to pull them out while the weather is good. i dread winter and the change of time.

As Maire Cate mentioned, we have had a warm October and even the leaf color change is later than usual. I have a big maple that always loses its leaves by Halloween, but not this year..

Amylou, venus flytraps are native to the coast of North Carolina, so they need a cool winter rest. Could you find a sheltered spot outside for it?

We're still dodging our first frost here but very close to it with nite temps in the upper 30's. A slow warming trend is predicted to come back by this weekend into next week, maybe 70F by next Tues? The fall crops like it, plus with a few tomatoes, peppers, and summer flowers still hanging on.

Yep, as expected there was a heavy glazing of ice over the ground this morning and now that the sun is out it is melting and leaves are falling like crazy.

Another sign that fall is here is a nice size buck walking along the edge of my property with his nose to the ground a little while ago. The rut is on!

I worked yesterday afternoon to get my tender perennials protected. I didn't have my spots indoors for them ready, so the citrus and geraniums are in the garage. I did bring the potted sweet pepper and the begonias into the house but need to make their spots also. The potted grocery store mini roses were sunk into the ground in one of the beds to overwinter there..

Lily316, I rescued another pepper plant from the curb also - it is a hot pepper, I think.

Nothing has gone dormant here yet, but this week will do it. Then the figs will stay in the garage, the dahlias and cannas will go into the basement. The pots with the annuals will go into the garage also - I let them go to seed and so they come back every year.

Today I will go out and pile straw or leaves around the potted fruit trees. The grass needs to be mown shorter for the winter too - it has still been growing vigorously.

It's 48° out there right now. I just cut down my okra, I couldn't pull it out of the ground, they were like little trees. I also pulled up all the pepper, tomato and squash plants. My snow peas are doing fine but don't think they'll produce any peas. I planted them in the Fall but had to replant them so they were really late. Still have a cabbage that was a volunteer this past year, got a small cabbage from it but decided to leave it and now it looks like it is trying to form another head. Not only that but there is a baby cabbage near it. Swiss chard is still doing okay as are the onions.

I did bring in two tomato plant cuttings, 2 eggplants and the one bell pepper I had out in the garden. They are doing great under my grow lights but are really leafing out again after I cut them way back. I may have to cut them back several times this winter.

I still have one pumpkin slooowwly ripening - it's about halfway orange. The arugula is fine, untouched by the freeze, and I know it will come back next year. I noticed lots of cosmos seedlings up, fooled by our warm October, I guess. Some of the spring bulbs had sprouted as well, but I think they should be okay.

I did discover that I had forgotten my lushly blooming mandevilla. It might recover, though, now that it's protected.

Nickel i have a carport. Maybe that will do. I will try it. If he doesn't make it I will just have to get over it....

It might freeze here this weekend. I cleaned my houseplants to get them ready to come inside. Had to double check Don’t want a butterfly to emerge in the middle of Winter with nowhere to go. Relocated 4 to safe spots outside so far. Guess that’s what I get with both fennel and Pipevine close to the porches.

Last week I noticed some cosmos blooming, volunteers from last year's planting. My little coreposis rebloomed a month or so ago, after blooming this past Spring. It's still doing okay this afternoon, weird.

@amylou321, overwintering a venus flytrap in your carport sounds good. You're in Alabama, zone 7 or 8? So keep Kevin damp, not soppy wet and never bone dry; temperatures above 32 are perfectly okay but protect him from extended freezes (such as Texas got last winter) especially if he's in his own small pot. He will go more dormant as the days shorten, and slowly wake back up when daylight increases in spring. Good luck!

Kevin sounds just like my Arp Rosemary!

LoneJack, yes, pretty much! Someday when you're in a big box store and see those little VFT "death cubes," pick one up and give it a try! :-)

The forecast has changed a bit here so now there is a frost advisory for tomorrow morning @ 34F. We're on the "warm" side of this advisory so it'll be touch and go. Might be digging up the sweet potatoes sooner than thought. Sad to see the zinnas, cosmos, vincas, and impatients say bye-bye. The pansies are now planted so they'll be just fine out there.

The forecast here is 34F in early Friday moring with frost warning. A huge planter of sunpatiens in front of the garage is going to fend for themselves. I brought all tender plants inside the sunroom, including smaller pots of sunpatiens so i will enjoy spring blooms all winter. Also just cut chryssanthemums for the house and to give away some.