The gorgeous colour displays that so arrested our gaze is now no more.  All the glorious blooms that maintained their spectacular shapes and blazing colours succumbed to an early hard frost.  From one day where we drank in their beauty to the following one where we looked with helpless dismay on their collapse, the garden was completely transformed.

It was a cool, blustery day and I dressed accordingly, with a warm jacket to break the wind, and an array of baskets to receive the frost's trophies which I meant to shelter and hold over until such time that they could be revived to display their lovely freshness once again.

Those ever-blooming begonias whose blooming exuberance we so treasure are never tossed completely onto the growing heap of garden compost.  We carefully retrieve their bulb portions, shake off as much soil as we can, and place them in baskets to be taken down into the basement where they will rest until some time in late winter or early spring when they begin to awaken, prodded back to life by sun rays shining through the basement windows reminding them that it's time to get back to work.

Occasionally a few of the begonia bulbs will stir themselves far too early and they will produce minuscule flowers in mid-winter, reminding us that they too are eager for winter to depart and spring to make its tardy appearance.  Harvesting the bulbs is sad work but also hopeful in nature.  Along with the begonias the roots of potato vines too are plopped into the baskets for their turn to rest and be resurrected at spring planting time.

In short order, as October comes to a close we will take advantage of all opportunities to cut back all the perennials, which we've already begun the process of achieving, and storing all the garden furniture in our garden sheds to await spring's invitation.