I love chrysanthemums; these wonderful flowers bloom in late August and continue to bloom until frost, and even light frosts don't bother them. But at our dacha in Krasnoyarsk, they don't overwinter in the open ground, so we have to dig them up in the fall and store them in the cellar.
I've been growing white chrysanthemums for many years, and this year (2020) I grew several more bushes from a seed mixture. Some of them bloomed this year—white ones, light yellow ones with small daisy-like flowers, and red ones with larger semi-double flowers—but some bushes didn't bloom this year.
You can read more about chrysanthemums here. Here.
I usually dig up chrysanthemums in mid-October, when nighttime temperatures drop below freezing, freezing the leaves and flowers, and snow is still a long way off. This year, snow fell unexpectedly on October 6th. Forecasters had warned of snow, but somehow I couldn't believe it.
On October 5th it was very warm all day, after work we went to the dacha.
I was digging up roses, while my husband and grandson were covering our gazebo-terrace with a banner. The chrysanthemums and other flowers were still blooming profusely, and I couldn't bring myself to pluck the flowering bushes; I decided to let them bloom a little longer.
This is what my flowers looked like that day.
Soon the wind picked up, the sky became cloudy, it started to rain, it quickly got dark, and without finishing our chores, we began to get ready to go home.
I managed to dig up the roses, trim them, and place them in bags with soil for storage, and brought them into the greenhouse, but I didn’t have time to treat them or wrap them in newspapers.
It rained all night, and by morning it snowed. Snow fell all day, large flakes quickly covering cars and yards in drifts. Trees and shrubs, weighed down by wet leaves and snowcaps, bent their branches almost to the ground.
After work, we rushed to the dacha. The snowdrifts there were even deeper than in the city. My chrysanthemums were covered in a thick layer of snow and lay in the snow.
I shook the snow off them, raked the snow away from the bushes, trimmed the flowering branches, and my husband and I dug up the bushes and brought them into the greenhouse. I spent the entire evening fiddling with the chrysanthemums. I trimmed the stems, placed the bushes in bags filled with soil, and watered the soil with a phytosporin solution.
They will stay in the greenhouse for a while, but as soon as the night temperatures are above minus five degrees, we will lower them into the cellar.
I collected a bouquet of chrysanthemums from the cut branches and added some October lilies to them.
This is just the first snowfall; by the next day, it had almost all melted. The October berries, which had been drooping to the ground, have risen, straightened their branches, and continue to bloom. They will continue to fight for life until a more severe frost strikes.
There is also a persistent delphinium blooming near the greenhouse, but I couldn’t cut it back.
I could have waited for the snow to melt before digging the chrysanthemums out from under the snow. But the weather forecast called for snowfall and subzero temperatures all week long, day and night. I wanted to protect them from the cold and damp.