Buried by two inches of heavy, wet snow on October 27 and then another six inches on November 4 (followed both times, of course, by magnificent Indian Summer sun), my orange gazania refuses to give up!
The South African daisy is drought tolerant -- and apparently snow tolerant!!! -- and considered a weed in California. Golden State, you can send me all the gazanias you don't want. I will graciously take every single seed you send!!! (Your golden poppies are quite welcome, too!)
As a matter of fact, I have a couple of California poppies still blooming, too, in spite of the snow and cold.
As long as we're taking roll, one of three delphinium stalks vying to be last hanger-on-er survived both storms and is blooming without many leaves (because most froze). Amazing.
Can't forget about that one last sunflower. Can't tell yet if it will be red (which is the only kind of sunflower seeds I put out this year), but the six-incher storm laid the plant out flat, which ended up protecting it from the week of overnight freezes. This little stalwart popped right back up in upright position as soon as it felt the rays of the sun when the snow was done melting.
Unbelievably, two diehard cosmos blossoms also survived the six-incher, but not the overnight freeze the following night.
My gazania grows so low to the ground, I haven't been able to get a photo of snow on a blossom. The flowers close up in the evenings, and the snow so far has begun falling after dark. A thick blanket of snow will insulate garden growth from extreme cold, and the moisture that melts off the following day is oh, so healthy!
I also planted the most beautiful pink gazania in the raised-bed garden last spring (and two previous summers), but none survived the late freezes in April and May, darn it. I've also tried planting gazania from seed, with no luck yet. How I would love to go overboard photographing pink gazania as I've been doing with the marigold-hued variety!
Yes, you heard that right. I've been clicking the shutter repeatedly while in search of just the perfect image.
My gosh, this is so fun... I could do this all day!
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