RAPID CITY, SD – It’s a sure that freezing temperatures are just around the corner when Rapid City’s Greenhouse Specialist brings in the banana plants.

On Friday morning, Greenhouse Specialist John Berglund and his crew were digging up the four banana plants that had spent the past several months at the William Noordemeer Formal Gardens on Canyon Lake Drive.

The plants were trimmed down and will be placed in 25-gallon pots and settled in for the winter at Rapid City’s greenhouse in what is an annual routine. Berglund said the plants will be pushing out leaves within just days at the greenhouse and by next year they’ll be back in the Rapid City park’s landscape.

“It’s kind of Rapid City’s thing,” Berglund said. “It creates a different type of landscape that you don’t normally see in western South Dakota that we are able to do here in the Rapid City gardens.”

The ornamental banana plants are something of a unique addition to the parks in Rapid City – Berglund started three of them from seed and two from a greenhouse in 2017.

The plants move to different spots over the years, but the Formal Gardens seem to suit them well – especially this year with heat, no hail, and rain over the past couple of months.

“They were all of 10 or 12 feet,” he said. “It was a great year for the banana plants here in Rapid.”

The banana plants will be back in the city’s gardens shortly after Memorial Day.

The activity on Friday showed that, clearly, Berglund is watching the weather forecasts.

Rapid City is experiencing a major weather shift, moving from unseasonably warm conditions into a definitive autumn chill that will include Sunday highs in the 50s and overnight lows in the high 30s and 40s.

By Sunday, a cold front will drop temperatures about 30 degrees, and highs will be in the mid-50s and bring a slight chance of showers. Next week, the chilly temperatures and continue.

As the chilly temperatures settle in, the 25,000 annual flowers will disappear from several locations around town, non-native grasses that won’t survive the winter will be stubbed down and prepared for next year, and fallen leaves will be put over roses where needed, putting everything to bed for the long winter ahead.

“I hope everyone enjoyed the season,” Berglund said. “It’s sad when it comes to an end but there’s always the expectations of next year.”

The root balls weigh about a hundred pounds and will continue to grow at Rapid City’s greenhouse during the winter.