Oh Christie, thank you for sharing! You have alot more blooms than I do. The frost has gotten most things.
I have an aster with simular coloring but I think the shape is different. I'll have to try to get a pic taken.
I didnt pinch my mums back and they look straggly.
Its nice you still have flowers so late :)

Very pretty. I've always liked the green eyed daisies. You must have stayed warmer. Everything froze weeks ago at my house. I had some pretty asters earlier from the Master Gardeners' sale in Springfield. I hope I can keep them because they are drought tolerant. I have to water mums all years for a brief fall show, but asters seem to be something I can keep through our dry summers. They are new to me.

Most of my asters are done except the native blues. Lots of mums, color all over the place. some are mostly done, some haven't even started blooming yet.

Those are the ones that were here when I moved here, very tall and very late and spread seed all over the place.

There are three colors of those now, I think they have been secretly breeding with some of my others. The original is pale cream that gets pale yellow and ages to pink, one is a kind of melony pink and other is the color of red maple leaves.

I usually don't cut those back in summer as that makes them really late to bloom and they get caught by hard freezes which spoils their flowers.

I usually buy a dozen small mums as soon as they are available in the fall for 99 cents (or 1.29), whatever, and the next year they are huge, so I have as many colors as I can find. Some of the ones I got last year have been blooming since June, and are still going.

Next year I'm going to look for spider mums as I don't have any of those, and more daisy mums. I have one daisy mum that's the same color as your "Beth" but with a yellow eye. I love that color!

I'm going to start hitting Lowe's pretty soon for asters on sale. I bought a bunch last year at the end of the season and they all lived!

It's hard to find mums in the spring but I did one year at Kmart in tiny three inch pots and those things were huge by fall. They didn't return after winter though. I've had Beth for almost 10 years now.

Do you keep track of the names of your mums Mosswitch? Just wondering if you have a favorite. I have a yellow mum that isn't blooming yet. I'd much rather have ones that start earlier. It's hard for me to shovel prune poor plants though. I just can't do it. lol

The mystery aster in my photo above has a couple volunteers by it so I'm a little leary of it. It's not something I want a whole bunch of. It starts blooming too late and it's just weedy looking all summer until it blooms. Aster 'Purple Mound' starts blooming earlier and has a better shape. I have three little starts of that one that are blooming but still so tiny. I hope they make it through the winter.

We only had one night here that got too cold. Wish it had stayed just a couple degrees warmer that night. I still have quite a few flowers on a salvia Black and Blue that's by my retaining wall and there's a big cherry tomato plant that's growing next to the east side of my house that hasn't had any frost damage yet. - And there's one big purple flower on my Jackmanii clematis. : )
I've seen a few roses that still look pretty good but mine don't.

I usually leave the labels in the ground by the plants, Christie. That's the extent of my keeping track. I do try to take pictures when they are blooming so if I want to take cuttings in the spring, I can see what color I'm getting, if the label is lost.

Sometimes all the labels I get on those little three inch pots are the color, no names. You know, "assorted mums, yellow", etc. I particularly like the rusty red/orange ones, and the whites really stand out. I did get some whites this year that aged to pink, so you really never know what you're getting. "Orange" turned out to be salmon color, lol!

I still have some flowers on my Knockout roses, the apple blossom pink is still pretty. We are on top of a hill so the frost hasn't been too bad. It did get the top leaves of the periwinkles and the elephant ears, but I pruned those off and they are still good for a while, until we get a hard freeze anyway. I covered the nasturtiums and they are still pretty. Crape myrtles still have a few blooms, and the black and blue salvia is still going strong. The impatiens didn't get hurt.

I always cut the tall asters back hard in May, and then some more in June so they don't get as tall and flop all over everything.

This year I put some at the sunny east edge of the woods with some of those tall mums, ditch daylilies, money plant and the wild yellow bidens that blooms in Sept.-Oct. Kind of a wildflower area, and I've scattered some goldenrod seed and Queen Anne's lace too. Ought to be pretty down there and the deer should leave it alone as they don't like that stuff very much. There are also some irises in the mix. That end is where I usually plant the leftovers and culls from the upper gardens. Better than honeysuckle anyday!

Sandy