Mother Nature is a hard ole girl.
If she determines it’s time to send the killing frost to begin Winter’s Slumber, bundle up baby.
No matter if you’re a beloved Begonia or a pretty Princess Plant, you’re gonna freeze…maybe even to death.
It’s not that Mother Nature hates flowers, she just has a schedule to keep. And if you can’t take the frosts of Winter you’re gone. Down to your roots or back to your core.
She’ll do it quick, she’s not sadistic. Over night, under a starry sky she’ll drop the temperature like an icy blanket smothering all that’s tender.
And she’ll do it with style.
In the morning she’ll leave behind a beautiful white wonderland hiding the death in a white shroud of her finest frosty crystals. It takes your breath away, such cold calculus sent to set things in seasonal motion. We are reminded that nothing lasts. That the only constant is change. We are made to understand that it is Mother Nature in charge and she has a plan.
Oh we can try to save a beloved Princess Plant by hiding her under a protective sheet, but it’s about like hiding under the covers from the bogeyman, and about as effective.
All we can hope for is that, come Spring, Mother Nature will choose to bestow the kiss of life on our Sleeping Princesses and the cycle of life will begin again.
Until then we light the long nights with pretty lights, warm wine and roaring fires.
The killing time will be over soon.
We will see Spring signs shortly.
Just about end of January.
Ahhhh, Winter in Napa!
