Going to the Dark Side of the Moon.

We are big fans of the movie "Apollo13" and the scene where the damaged spacecraft was headed to the dark side of the moon to enable it to safely return home.  There is radio silence and suspense of the crew coming back into contact with Houston and safely returning home.  We have been referring to this time of year for our overwintering flowers as going to the dark side of the moon.

           

Today is the day where our flowers will begin receiving less than 9 1/2 hours of daylight and they will now stop growing.  They will bide their time and hopefully survive until January 23rd, where they will reemerge from the dark side, the hours will begin to increase and our flowers will begin to grow again.

Although December 21st is the shortest day of the year with 8 1/2 hours of daylight, the plants are actually affected earlier and longer by the absence of enough light for our latitude.  So Houston, our seedlings are going into radio silence.  We will catch up with them on the other side of the moon in January.