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A month ago, the Twin Cities was under a frost advisory for two nights, and I panicked and picked all of the tomatoes.

purple tomato with a green bottom

There was a very light frost, barely even noticeable, and I learned my lesson to leave the tomatoes on the vine and just cover them until the first hard frost.

blue bowl full of tomatoes of varied sizes, shapes, and colors, mostly green

Except that the next week there was a hard frost advisory, and it still didn’t freeze. It’s 72 degrees on November 5, and I just heard that the Twin Cities has now set a record for the longest growing season ever. Things in my garden just keep on growing.

broccoli

large broccoli head

raspberries

one raspberry flower and a dozen green berries

cabbage, which we waited maybe one day too long to harvest and now a critter is eating it

round cabbage from above, with the left half peeled back and chewed

The leaves are starting to turn.

wild geranium

one mostly orange leaf

strawberries

two sets of three red leaves, standing above a lot of green leaves

joe-pye weed

yellowed leaves that are starting to turn brown

purple giant hyssop

a tall stem of curled, deep purple leaves

bee balm

more than a dozen seed heads above yellow, green, and pink leaves

But some flowers are still budding and blooming.

dahlia

a bright pink flower with more petals open on the right side

black-eyed susans

one yellow flower, four stems with single buds, and one stem with four buds

calendula

bright orange flower with the petals in the very center not unfolded yet

autumn joy sedum

four stems of deep purple flowers

goldenrod

short yellow stalk

turtlehead, covered in dew instead of frost

short stalk with two pink flowers at the top

yellow coneflowers

cluster of nine stems with buds

and more yellow coneflowers growing in an unusual spot: the side of the planter

two small green plants on the side of a gray stucco wall

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Remember back in late June when I whined that there were no monarchs in my yet? The very first monarch I saw was this tattered female in mid-July:

butterfly with wings spread and a chunk taken out of its lower wings, climbing on a purple flower stalk

I also saw a few others, like this one two days later that tried and tried to get the unopened joe-pye weed to work before giving up and flying off to the fully open purple coneflower

monarch standing on the center of a flower, its wings folded closed

and this gorgeous male two weeks later that spent more than an hour in the garden, splitting time between the now-open joe-pye weed and the cup plant

butterfly with its wings stretched wide and the flower in the background, viewed from above

zoomed-in photo of a small orange butterfly from the side, on a yellow flower

and I saw evidence of caterpillars

the underside of a milkweed leaf with a tiny crescent-shaped hole in the lower left and a small circle hole in the middle

but until late September, I never saw even one caterpillar in my yard. After last summer’s excitement of fostering 13 caterpillars over two generations, this was disheartening, especially after bad news about the freak March snowstorm that killed many monarchs in their overwintering habitat in Mexico.

But I tried to stay positive with news from real friends and internet friends about monarch and caterpillar sightings in the area, even though I was seeing fewer butterflies than last year. The reports seemed to be more numerous as the migration generation was growing.

right-side view of a butterfly with wings closed, climbing on joe-pye weed buds

As the season was winding down, I had a blast at Ney Nature Center in Henderson, “hunting” monarchs at sunrise to tag them for their journey to Mexico. There were far fewer sleeping in the trees than the staff anticipated – in fact, we only saw one (and it got away). I then spent many hours walking through the prairie and saw quite a few monarchs

butterfly in a large clump of light-purple asters, with other flower seedheads nearby

and my first-ever viceroys! Such a convincing monarch mimic. This butterfly is much smaller than a monarch, though that’s not obvious unless comparing them side-by-side. The biggest visual difference is that viceroys have a black line through their lower wings, while monarchs do not.

viceroy butterfly with its wings unfolded, viewed from above

In the end, I caught five, though two escaped, so I tagged three.

two butterflies inside a mesh monarch cage

fingers holding a monarch's wings closed, with a small sticker tag on the lower wing

And then – on the first day of autumn – I found a caterpillar in my front yard, moments away from beginning its transformation. I brought it inside, where it created its chrysalis. It stayed that way for two weeks, to the point where I was getting worried that the process had failed. But then, the green darkened to show wings forming inside.

a hand holding a chrysalis with the top still green, viewed from the side with one wing somewhat visible

The butterfly emerged the next day, but I wasn’t home until the evening and so I decided to keep him inside overnight. Then next afternoon he was so antsy to get outside that he climbed out of the (nonsecure) mesh cage (really, a laundry container without a top). Fortunately, I had anticipated this and covered it with a towel, so he didn’t escape. But the release day was chilly – barely 50 degrees even though it was sunny – and I wondered if he felt tricked when I took him outside; he was suddenly in no hurry to move.

butterfly sitting on the top of a white mesh laundry hamper

After I let him climb onto my finger, he flew right up to a tree, like all of last year’s monarchs did, but this one perched in the shade. I knew he was not going to warm up there, so when he was still there an hour later, I climbed up a stepstool and took him down to find a better spot.

monarch hanging from a leaf of a birch tree, viewed from the right side

The backyard was somehow much warmer, so he rested on my finger for a few minutes while his wings warmed up, and then away he flew.

butterfly with wings unfolded, resting on my outstretched finger

I’m thrilled to find out that our common milkweed still attracted monarchs late in the season, when it didn’t look so good anymore. This year we added three other types of milkweed as small plants in the backyard garden, and hopefully 2017 will be the year the swamp milkweed seeds take off, too. The more variety we can provide for summer-long habitat, the better.

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In mid-July I finally started seeing a few monarch butterflies in the garden, but I did not find even one caterpillar all summer. That changed today – the first day of autumn – when I was collecting flower seeds and a line of yellow-and-black stripes caught my eye.

caterpillar on the underside of a deteriorating milkweed leaf, with coneflower and milkweed seedpods nearby

With the nights getting colder, I brought this little one inside to form a chrysalis (at any moment). When he or she emerges as a butterfly in about two weeks, I hope it will not be too late to join the migration to Mexico.

 

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Spring ephemerals are plants that bloom for a short amount of time and then die back completely.

Are trilliums ephemerals? They bloom at the same time as other ephemerals such as Dutchman’s breeches, bloodroot, and spring beauty. It seems every site on the internet says they are indeed ephemerals.

But I am sure I once read an argument that trilliums are not true ephemerals because they don’t die back right away. And now I can’t find that source.

I have seen trillium leaves linger into early summer, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen trilliums stick around until September – but they did this year. Both the large-flowered trilliums and the Trillium sessile are still visible today.

three large light-green bracts with a little brown around the edges, two mostly-brown sepals and the third mostly green, only the very center of the three petals remaining and brown

two Trillium sessile plants, the left with wet bracts, dried sepals and no visible petals, the right with intact sepals with dried petals

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We were treated to a nice autumn that lasted about two weeks longer than it usually does, but suddenly it’s cold. Our first lasting snow fell this week, and there is more on the way tomorrow. In the last couple of weeks, I collected lots of seeds from our yard.

Yellow coneflower,

blazing star,

joe-pye weed,

culver’s root,

stiff goldenrod,

cup plant,

purple prairie clover.

I packed up some seeds to share with coworkers…

…and made my own custom mix of these and eight more whose names didn’t fit on the envelope. (Now I’m noticing a mistake: we have stiff goldenrod, not smooth goldenrod.)

19 wildflowers listed on the back of an envelope

We’ll use these seeds – along with a grass mix from Prairie Restorations – next spring in a big area of our backyard that we’re converting from lawn. It would’ve been best to get them planted this autumn, but the lawn hasn’t been removed yet. I’m not sure how many of the seeds will grow in 2016 without being winterized, but I’ll try keeping them in the fridge until spring to help the process.

Some seeds were gathered to share – and some were gathered to prevent more growth. Milkweed is both. It’s pretty as one pod…

…but it creates hundreds more seeds than I need, especially since the plant also spreads underground.

Pearly everlasting results in thousands of seeds. I love the plant – and so do butterflies and bees – but it is spreading aggressively. I collected the seeds to get them out of the garden.

We also spent some time in cleaning up the garden before winter. I left most of the plant stalks where they grew, but I cut down the enormous cup plant and a couple others, storing the stalks in the backyard until spring, in case insects need shelter to hibernate.

And we divided and moved some plants. The irises were a couple years overdue, so their bulbs were packed tightly together. We split this group into three and moved it to new areas.

a two-foot circle of iris bulbs in a wagon

The snowdrop anemone doesn’t flower long, and now its leaves are taking over. We removed this big section from the main garden and planted it under a pine tree. I suspect that sometime in the future, we might be permanently removing it from the yard, but for now, we’re going to try it in a new location where it won’t crowd out the joe-pye weed and giant hyssop.

a shovel digging up a solid groundcover of snowdrop anemone

The most satisfying move: removing a giant dandelion that had been growing for three summers. It started out as a nuisance right next to a pretty allium two years ago. The dandelion’s leaves are barely visible in the bottom of this photo.

A year later it was intertwined with the allium, preventing us from easily removing it. The number of flowers was impressive. We always meant to separate the two plants, either in the spring or fall, but didn’t get around to it.

two dozen blooming allium bulbs, with barely visible dandelion leaves

By this year, the dandelion was so big that it choked the allium.

giant dandelion, with no allium in sight

This fall it was finally time. We were able to dig way down to the bottom (hopefully) of the root. Now the allium can come back.

dandelion leaves above a two-foot taproot