Texas sage, pansies, purple amaranthus, gaillardia, mums and bright red ornamental chard. All are still blooming away in my Delaware garden, and it’s heading into late November. By now, my early winter garden has usually been stripped of life and color by a series of hard frosts and freezes. Northern Delaware's mean temperature is supposed to be around 46˚ F with extended dips in the low 30s, but this year it’s far warmer. Many days have been in the 60s and 70s and nights have been relatively mild. Gardener's luck or global warming?

Either way, I've flower color where there's usually none, so I'm making the most of it. Yesterday I picked a bouquet of cheerful blooms for my table, to the delight of my daughter, and I’m keeping plants deadheaded in case the warm weather remains a little longer. The 10 day forecast suggests temperatures will remain in the 50s and 60s. If it’s accurate, we'll have an almost balmy Thanksgiving (very unseasonable). I guess that means lots of garden fresh parsley, sage, thyme and rosemary for the meal.

Unseasonably late warm temperatures hold a potentially serious downside. Some plants are prone to exhibit premature bud break. Regionally hardy native plants are “smart” and will remain dormant in weather like this, but lots of non-native ornamentals, like forsythia, hybrid roses, wine grapes and South Asian willows, may start to break bud and produce new leaves in response to extended warm winter days. If they break bud, they’ll be goners once the real cold hits—especially if it comes on quickly. The vulnerable,newly emerged tissues will die. In many cases, this will kill whole plants. I’ve seen willows die this way. After a cold blast, their non-dormant stems split open with curls of ice because there was lots of water flowing in their stems when they should not have been. Dormancy protects plants from winter.

So, despite the enjoyable balmy days we are experiencing across much of the Mid-Atlantic, I’d rather have the seasonal cold. It’s better for the natural environment, which means it’s better for us. Forget about the flowers (as hard as it might be).