November morning in the Adelphi Garden

Here in DC, Sandy didn't have much effect, but we did just experience a week or so of gray weather with temperatures more than 10 degrees below what we might have expected. Bleak, it was bleak. This weekend has been wonderful though: sunny, warm, no wind to speak of. It's as though we've transitions from mid-December back to October. I took my usual morning walk through the garden with the dogs. I was interested to see that one new "hardy" banana, Musa itinerans 'Mekong Giant' was almost completely melted down by one night of temperatures barely below freezing. The two plants at the Arboretum were similarly trashed. I'm not sure what this means; multiple planting of Musa 'Basjoo' in the same areas weren't similarly affected. Mekong Giant is supposed to be hardy to USDA Zone 6 but none of theses plants have been outside overwinter. We'll see.

The anemone flower in the middle is aging oddly. I wonder if it's virused? The leaves were unusually large this year as were the flowers. Now instead of dropping their petals, the petals are producing chlorophyll and wrinkling. It's 'Honorine Jobert', a classic single white.