Not your average geraniums

Frosts and freezes have become a nightly occurrence here (but no snow yet!) so I've been retreating into the house, browsing through books, and, well, making lists of plants to try growing next year (I can't help it, I'm addicted).
The other day I pulled Pelargoniums by Diana Miller off the shelf and started browsing through it. (An aside: I HATE the name Pelargonium. Totally unwieldy. Yet the common name geranium only leads to confusion with Geranium Pelargonium needs a new, unique common name. Anyone have a good idea of one?)
I have to admit, the text is a bit dry – it is all about the wild species pelargoniums, and the descriptions of more scientific than horticultural, but the diversity she describes is quite amazing! Look at some of these photos I took from the Pacific Bulb Society:

Not your everyday red geraniums from the local garden center!

I'm always amazed at the sheer diversity that lurks behind the seemingly most boring of genera. And apparently, the wild species are just the tip of the iceburg – check out some of the cool man-made pelagoniums in these photos I took from the holt geraniums website:

Absolutely gorgeous... I'm writing down on my Plant list 2010: Freaky Cool Pelargonium!

Does this flower NEVER die?

When frost was first threatened, I ran out and cut a flower and three leaves from my calla 'Edge of Night' (A lovely plant... black flowers, dark green leaves flecked with silver and edged with red). The flower had opened several weeks back, so I didn't expect it to last too long in the vase.
In a week it looked like this:

Since when do flowers last longer than leaves? The frost had spared the front garden, so I went out and got replacement leaves -- which also yellowed in a week, with the flower still going strong!

At this point, a freeze had eliminated all calla foliage (along with most everything else), so last weekend I searched for a replacement to set off the lovely flower.

They are the (incredibly spiney!) leaves of my scotch thistle. Looks pretty fantastic, doesn't it? Three weeks in the vase, and still, this flower shows no signs of fading. Maybe someone slipped me a plastic one?

Save your Salvia 'Black and Blue' tubers!

I'm a huge fan of Salvia guaranitica 'Black and Blue' -- actually, I think everyone is. Dark blue flowers, contrasting black calxy -- it is a supermodel of a plant. And, for me, tender. But: I learned something: It produces tubers. So, after our recent freeze, I went out with a garden fork and popped the plants. Sure enough, nice, fat, funny looking tubers. They've now been wrapped loosely in news paper, popped in a plastic grocery bag, and are sitting in the basement to wait for spring. (BTW: I used to avoid tender bulbs like dahlia and gladiolus because gardening books I'd read talked of storing them over the winter in damp but not wet sand (?) and such nonsense. But I've found a sheet of newspaper, a loosely closed plastic bad and cool basement work perfect.) Sure beats re-buying them every year!