Our first frost is predicted to arrive in a few days, so I spent much of today bringing my tropical plants inside. The plumerias came in a week ago, but today I brought in the kalanchoes, mandevillas, and some of the hibiscuses and pelargoniums that were in containers. Some of the clivias can come inside, but others are too heavy to move and will have to be content with a cover on frosty mornings.
The tibouchina, podranea, and a couple of the passifloras still have not progressed beyond the bud stage. This is the second year they haven't had time to bloom before the frost arrives. I'm tempted to dig them up, but their foliage is pretty and they did bloom three years ago. Hope springs eternal.
There are no big splashes of color in the garden now except for the Nerine, which is going nuts, and these poppies, which bloom all year.
Mambo has regained his fat winter face. His body's pretty fat too, but in winter it's so easy to see that domestic cats are related to lions because his head, especially with the addition of the winter mane, is too big for his body.
The roses continue to bloom, of course. These are Won Fang Yon, a sprawling tea rose, and Sweet Surrender, an extra-tall hybrid tea.
Red Rover is an old mini-rose and Princess Margaret Rose is a hybrid tea.
Gail Borden is another hybrid tea, and so is Mirandy.
I decided thirty years ago that Charisma was my favorite rose, and I still haven't found one I like more. It grows equally well in sun and in shade, where the color is so vibrant that it brightens up those shady corners of the garden. The other photo shows the end of a hanging cane of Climbing Happy. This winter light is good and bad for photography. I'm able to capture reds faithfully, but all of the photos are more blurry than usual.
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