Our comparatively mild fall and early winter here in Seattle has produced what seems like an especially long blooming season for many of our flowering plants. I should keep better records so that it’s not just speculation, but to me it seems strange to have certain things still putting out flowers here in the second week of December.
Even though I’ve added a few evergreen perennials to the parking strip, it still ought to be a comparative moonscape by now. But lo and behold, look what I found out there yesterday:
The ‘Pink Panda’ strawberries are still putting out flowers.
Pineapple sage is a late-season bloomer, but I don’t recall it hanging in there quite so long. I’m sure the hummingbirds don’t mind!
The golden variety is still chugging along too.
This one really shocked me:
I didn’t think it was possible to have nasturtiums here in December! And they’re even putting out babies!?! (At the right of the photo below, next to my slowly-growing mesclun seedlings.)
There’s exactly one heroic cosmos and aster left each, a little worse for wear but still going.
And, from the upper level garden, just like Raquel over at Perennial Garden Lover, I have one very last rose. My plants were inherited and are not disease-resistant, so they may get dug up next year since I am never going to spray. But I do appreciate the last vestige of summer that this rose provided, and I have made sure to look at it every day in appreciation.
What about you, got anything blooming unseasonably late this year?
It’s nice to still have flowers, mine are fading fast.
Rosemary!
I love all those late bloomers. We had a really long and warm fall same as you. Sometimes, though, we’ll get an early frost and the late sages and roses get a little too cold. I always get a little depressed when we get that first frost. You just really know the season is over for a few months and I have to resort to catalogues.
I had a nice disease resistant white rose in bloom up until a couple weeks ago, when I dug it out. The last thing I can think of that’s still blooming is my mexican orange. This whole winter is happening in slow motion, but it looks like it’s finally arriving.
The late blooming hummingbird-friendly flowers remind me of one cold winter when my sweet grandfather noticed there were hummingbirds still around when they should have headed for warmer temperatures, and he was going out every 20 minutes to replace frozen feeders with thawed ones. Hummingbirds always remind me of him.
How lovely those all are! I do love how things grow up there in the Pac NW. It is so soothing to look at it all.
Othere than those late blooming roses my garden is done for the year. After two days of weather dropping to the 20′s & 30′s it said adios for the winter. It’s nice that you still have a few lingering guests in your garden though! Thanks for the link Karen!
I’m not a great record keeper either, but it seems that this fall has been much milder than usual and winter, well, when is it going to hit? There is stuff blooming and ripening in the garden that keep surprising me.
It was fun to see we have some of the same late blooming plants. It *has* been so mild! We got a good frost last week and it might have done in my Pineapple sage flowers. I too have the pink strawberry flowers. It’s getting harder to find color, but I agreee, it has held on longer than normal.
Nice to see a few flowers hanging on. Pineapple sage is so so late isn’t it. Such a waste that it doesn’t bloom a couple of months earlier. Lovely fragrant leaves though!
Hi Karen, your garden seems very much still alive and blooming. The gold pineapple sage is a must have for me next year, too.
Frances
Our pineapple sage just brightens up my day. It is going crazy–but that will probably end come tomorrow when that cold front they keep promising finally arrives. We stil have coreopsis and blanket flowers blooming. The crocus satevus sent up leaves but no flowers yet–may have to wait till next year to get my saffron threads.