The day after Halloween, November greeted me with warmth and a stunning flower that crowned a tall and, truth be told, pretty spindly Japanese Anemone. I planted these perhaps a decade ago, and at the time, the shade they were growing under was modest enough that the plants seemed pretty content and floriferous. But over the years, that Red Maple has grown thicker and leafier, and what was once dappled shade is now close to total darkness; the anemones are no longer happy campers. Still, they do manage to put out a few blossoms annually, and for a few days, they're the glory of the late garden. Alas, as Robert Frost noted, "nothing gold can stay"—and neither can anything off-white, yellow, and pink. (I hope my color-blindness is allowing me to get the colors right!) Less than a week after the anemone show began, it was over, that one glorious bloom now dropping its petals and calling it a season.