Following on a week of heavy rain events and blustery-strong winds with night-time low temperatures flirting in the frost range, last night we had a hard frost. I've been procrastinating for weeks, unwilling to pull the plug on our garden. Many of the annuals, particularly the geraniums and the canna lilies, the petunias and the begonias have responded well to the cooler weather. They've been colourful and productive and beautiful, so I held back from harvesting them out of the many garden pots and urns.

As for the marigolds, the strawflowers, the gazanias and the zinnias, they too have been bearing up in the cooler temperatures that have brought rain, interspersed with ample sun. So I decided to leave them all as long as I possibly could. I did, bit by bit, cut back perennials and otherwise prepared the garden for its winter sleep, however. Even with an area as limited as ours, with the garden beds and borders, there is a lot of work to be done. In stages, bit by bit.

Back when the euonymus plants, the roses, rhododendrons and the magnolia trees were young, I used to cover them with winter gardening 'blankets' to ensure they were able to survive our harsh winter conditions. None of them any longer get protection from the cold, the snow and the icy winds and they do very well indeed; a vast number of magnolia buds are evident all winter long on the bared branches reaching now to the roof of the house. But there is still plenty of work in disassembling the garden.

I hadn't planned to finish up today. I'd emptied the pots in the backyard weeks ago of their annuals, but the greater number were in the front garden. But there was a heavy frost last night and what had looked presentable yesterday afternoon looked outright collapsed today. After breakfast I girded myself and set to the task, clearing out the garden and the garden pots.

The most stubborn to remove are the canna lilies and the dracaena; they become large and potbound and need to be dug out, sometimes taking the entire pot-full of soil in an oval ball of heavy proportions with them when they are finally lifted out.

I gradually filled four large-capacity compostable garden waste bags full of discarded annuals and cuttings of peony stalks, hydrangea canes, black-eyed Susans and hosta foliage. An hour into the endeavour I felt something wet falling and assumed the rain was starting up again. But I was wrong, it was snowing. So I continued working and finalized most of the job, ending with gathering up the fallen leaves to top off the bags with. Now, I've little left to do to complete the job, and should feel a sense of accomplishment.

Instead I feel a bit dreary about it all. All that texture, form, architecture and colour gone for another season. Winter will intervene, the garden will disappear under a deep layer of accumulated snowpack, not to be seen again until spring finally arrives some time in April.

Soon after I finished, and entered the house to relax, the snow stopped. The temperature had gradually risen from zero to 3C, and now it was rain that was descending once again. One of those 'just-in-time' events.