The annuals have been fed into the maw of that insatiably hungry beast, the chipper/shredder, and returned to nourish the earth that once, in turn, nourished them. Perennials lie in repose, not left cruelly to the vagaries of a winter outdoors, but solemnly buried under blankets of fresh mulch made from the desiccated and digested skeletons their former neighbors. One feels a bit cannibalistic, but then, this is the way of plants.
I don't behead the sunflowers — they provide winter seeds for the birds. But I ruthlessly guillotine aggressive seeders like garlic chives and morning glories before they can send their overenthusiastic progeny to claim the yard. These plants would be good if they only knew their place; they don't. So violence is the order of the day.
The final weeding is complete. There will still be weeds, because Mother Nature likes to fool us (no matter how much she resents being fooled in return) and will send a few warm days when the greenery sprouts with one last gasp of energy before being stunned into dormancy by the cold. I have done what I can to free the garden of these thugs who arrive uninvited and then try to strangle the life from those plants which were formally invited to join my garden party. They will crash that party again in spring, but I will stand ready, nature's self-appointed bouncer, checking ID's and routing out the intruders with fresh-sharpened hoe, or a poisoned paintbrush armed with Round-Up . . .
I hack and chop my way through the icy cold of my muddy bog, to the tender cannas and calla lilies; my frozen fingers have as little feeling as the woody corms and tubers I dig. Ruthlessly I rout them from their bed and chop them into pieces. When I check the tubers before entombing them in their winter caskets of damp peat, I see no fingers among them. For this I am grateful.
The brugmansias, crinum and tuberoses have been dug and potted to bring in; a heavy blast of hose assassinates any lingering pests. We will spend the winter dodging these plants; they will spend theirs reaching out, trying to snag a sweater or gouge an eye; but they will live to bloom another year.
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