Frosty Vermont

Friday, October 17th, 2014

Gardeners have been asking me when the gardening season comes to an end in Vermont. Mark from Florida said he has never been to Vermont and he wondered how his daylilies would fare if he lived here. Here is the over view I just provided. As mentioned, the geography of our little state provides lots of variation in weather and when the first frost comes in the fall and the weather finally warms in spring.

"Weather is Vermont varies a great deal over the 125 mile length of the state because of the geography. Where I garden, a typical spring finds 3-4 frosts (24-28 degrees) from late April until about the 28th of May although we have experienced a killing frost as late as the first week of June when daylilies and hostas were beginning to look nice. In fall we always have a killing frost the end of September and then warm weather returns until mid October. We are on course for that now and Sunday morning will provide snow in the upper elevations, frozen plants everywhere.

Killington, Vermont which is central and western Vermont was on the national news last night with our fall foliage featured. This was the best year in my lifetime. For guaranteed  color, always come the end of September --say 28th on through the first week of October. October always brings big rain storms inc. wind and beautiful foliage can be gone in hours."

George Africa

The Vermont Gardener