Autumn Flowers

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Seems I'm only inspired to update my garden blog when the weather is nice, and I suppose that makes sense. These days I tend to avoid the outdoors in the heat of summer, and in the dead of winter, there's not much to photograph or talk about, unless we have a snow or ice storm. So, this may be my last post for 2006, unless Mom Nature prompts me otherwise.

There's a surprising amount of things blooming in my garden -- you'd almost think it was Spring. And speaking of Spring, I even found an abandoned nest the other day, between a window shutter and my porch wall:

I'm thinking this was probably a purple finch nest and egg.
I'm sad it never hatched.

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This has been another neglectful year for my garden. I'm thinking that my passion for gardening has waned a bit, but I'm okay with that -- it was more of an obsession at its height, and obsessions aren't healthy, so I'm told. But part of me misses the fervor I once held for all things green and blooming. And I'm a bit sad at how many botanical names and how much horticultural information I once had memorized, but have since forgotten. I'm nothing, if not a fickle hobbyist.

Because of this benign neglect, what blooms I do have are just forlorn and lonely representatives of their species. Rather than robust and plentiful displays of color, I have just a spot here or there of pink or blue or purple. But at least there is some kind of color. And what I have this year is far better than the death and destruction from drought I experienced last summer and fall.

So I am grateful for perennials that refuse to die, such as:

Autumn Crocus.
(I'm just wild about saffron...).
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Eupatorium coelestinum
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Bonica Rose
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Rose
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Zinnia
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Creeping Plumbago
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Verbena 'Homestead Purple'
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Salvia
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Oxalis
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Zinnia
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Zebra Grass
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Hey -- it's still Autumn, after all....
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