I was still very much a New York City boy learning about Coastal New England. So, on a hike in the woods early in the fall, I asked my girlfriend about the pretty purplish flowers. She smiled and told me they were “frost flowers” because they opened as white flowers and gradually deepened in color as the season progressed, from white to lavender and then a bit deeper. Weather forecasts were uncertain, and the flowers were a folk forecast for frost. And sure enough, about three days later, I woke to the season’s first hard frost, with the long-term prognosis of a wet and icy coastal winter.
That winter, I learned how to fine-tune the little kerosene heater in the kitchen, use a torch very gently on a frozen water pipe, and dress in many more layers than I ever had in the city.
Every year since, I have looked for the little asters that turn color, and I still call them frost flowers, just as she and her family did. Although I know the Latin names for many of the plants in my gardens and woods, I persist in referring to them as frost flowers. In this, I prefer folk wisdom and custom to anything more sophisticated. I like it. It gives me a feeling of place and tradition.
Discover more from Louis N. Carreras, Woodcarver
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
This is interesting. I have a shrub in my garden called Yesterday Today and Tomorrow. The flowers’ colors grow just the opposite, though. They start out deep violet, then light violet and then white. Highly poisonous, though.
interseting plant for the color change. I used to have a garden that was just planrs used in folk medicine, one of my anthropological interest, many of those were toxic, but very interesting.
So dainty. Are they heralding the first frost of the season?
Could be any day now. But I realized a long time ago there is a bit of folklore in the name too.
The weather is also far more unruly these days.
It’s like a rollercoaster.
Your frost flowers are the same colour as our Michaelmas daisies. 😊
I just Googled that. Intersting. when I was on that part of the coast most of the families wwere old settler families that had come over from England. and Michaelmas daisies start blooming around the same time.
Thanks! I’ll have to think about this!
Michaelmas daisies are the first signs that autumn is coming. They’re considered weeds here but I love them!
Frost flowers are a weed too. But I always let them grow in the woodland side of the garden.
They do the same here. It’s pretty amazing.