The killing frost has come and gone, but some of my plants are still blooming. The biggest surprise is Daylily ‘Stella in Yella’. It was the first daylily to bloom in my garden in late spring, and now it’s also the last:
I can count on one hand the number of daylilies that have ever rebloomed for me, and what makes this little yellow flower even more of a wonder is that I dug up and divided the plant in mid-September. I’m not sure how it found the energy to send up a new scape much less bloom AFTER a hard frost.
Several of my annuals also deserve an endurance award. Most of my plants wilted in the frost but the Durango marigolds just shrugged it off. The flowers are smothered in happy honeybees every afternoon.
And the flowers on my other new favorite marigold—‘Moonstruck Yellow’—look a little tired but they also survived the frost:
At this point nothing surprises me when it comes to Begonia ‘Santa Cruz Sunset’. I could probably light the plants on fire and they’d still thrive. Not only did they weather the frost, but they show no signs of stress even though I’ve only remembered to water them twice this month. We’ve received just a trace amount of rain during the entire month of October.
If you’re looking for plants with staying power, you can’t go wrong with these tough guys.