However, I cannot show you the last rose of summer because (a) I do not have any roses and (b) my neighbors who do have roses of the popular "knockout" variety have many, many roses currently and I have no clue at this point which of them will turn out to be the last one of the year.
Therefore, I will show you what I do have, which are our encore azaleas (so named because they bloom both spring and fall) and our beautiful sasanqua camellia which blooms every year in September and October. We have had this particular bush for 13 years now. I have no idea how old it was when Phoebe E., our landscaper, planted it near our front door, but like this blog, it endures. Camellias seem to be both hardy and fragile (I think of Greta Garbo in her most famous role) but the individual blooms do not last long. The petals fall to the ground daily and are supplanted by more of their kind. This seems to me to be symbolic of blogs and bloggers in general, and I for one am happy to have continued as long as I have.
I may be gone in a moment's notice or stay around for quite a spell -- no one knows for sure -- but while I remain I intend to bloom my guts out for your reading enjoyment.
The jury is still out on whether this blog is written by a budding genius or a blooming idiot.
Congratulations. ten years is good going. I'll vote for genius as it's a birthday.
ReplyDeleteI do not know how long I have been blogging. I began as one of several bloggers on another site. Ten years is a long time. It takes a special person to keep at it for so long. Congratulations.
ReplyDeleteTen years? Tenacity in spades. Which (sort of) fits the blooming analogy.
ReplyDeleteI fail with azaleas. So have stopped even attempting to grow them. And the cockatoos vandalise the camellias, so our front door will never look as picturesque as yours.
Gorgeous flowers, grown by a gorgeous soul, and one who has managed ten years of superb writing. More than a small acheivement sir. Congratulations! *lets off fireworks and party poppers, then wheels in a giant cake out of which jumps all the followers of this fine blog, who hug rhymes, kiss Mrs rhymes, and dance the rest of the night away* Xx
ReplyDelete(I hope it's still the 28th at your end, for it is here! Michelle)
Thank you, one and all, by which I mean you four specifically at this time (although the list may be expanded later), for your congratulations and good wishes. I'd like to think we'll be having a similar conversation ten years from now on this blog's twentieth anniversary.
ReplyDeleteI hope you will keep your promise to bloom your guts out as in the last couple of years there have peen noteworthy periods of hibernation when the muse evaded you. Happy 10th Anniversary Bob!
ReplyDeleteYorkshire Pudding, I’m blooming as fast as I can but the old engine seems to have slowed down ever so slightly.
ReplyDeleteCongratulation.
ReplyDeleteGraham, thank.
ReplyDeleteI just read your comment on my last post and could recall the pink flowers on your but couldn't recall my comment. Then when I came here I remembered the wit of your response to my dropped 's' in my comment. One of the problems I have with your blog is that by the time I make my comment I can't see the post without saving and going back to the blog page. (I can't hold images in my head - a considerable handicap). Your flowers were Camellias which I don't think would grow here. I'm trying to think why my comment was so terse. It must have been late and I must have been tired. Apologies.
ReplyDeletethere’s nothing for which you have to apologize or even apologise. No harm done. When I comment via iPhone I am able to scroll back and forth between the comment I am composing and the post. I think I can do the same thing on my desktop computer but it has been awhile since I commented that way and I don’t remember for certain. I knew your pink flowers were not camellias but the colours matched very closely, I thought.
ReplyDelete"The jury is still out on whether this blog is written by a budding genius or a blooming idiot."
ReplyDeleteAre you saying that the verdict brought in by the first jury was vacated?
I hadn't heard of "encore azaleas," but I should think they would be immensely popular.
My sister will be flattered when I tell her that you started your blog on her birthday.
Snowbrush, I think the earlier trial ended in a mistrial. Encore azaleas were invented a couple of decades back, I think -- long after you left the South -- and are all the rage around here along with knockout roses.
ReplyDelete"I think the earlier trial ended in a mistrial."
ReplyDeleteYes, I remember it now, the case being of such notoriety that it was even in the Oregon papers.
"Encore azaleas were invented a couple of decades back, I think -- long after you left the South"
Azaleas do well in the Willamette Valley, although rhodies are more popular. In fact, there's a 120-year-old rhododendron park here in Eugene, and Peggy and I go there every year when the flowers are in their full glory. I would even say that MOST of the ornamental trees, shrubs, and other plants that you enjoy, do well in the Willamette Valley (which is but 100 miles long and 50 miles wide, yet holds most of the people who live in the very large state of Oregon), but few of them ever establish themselves in the wild. Our firs residence when we came here in 1986 was in an apartment complex called Magnolia Manor after its many Southern Magnolias.
"I think the earlier trial ended in a mistrial."
ReplyDeleteYes, I remember it now, the case being of such notoriety that it made the Oregon papers for weeks, and suggested that you must be a man of great wealth to retain such a large and prestigious firm of attorneys.
"Encore azaleas were invented a couple of decades back, I think -- long after you left the South"
Actually, azaleas do well in the Willamette Valley, although rhodies are more popular. In fact, there's a 120-year-old rhododendron park here in Eugene, and Peggy and I go there every year when the flowers are in their full glory. I would even say that MOST of the ornamental trees, shrubs, and other plants that you enjoy, do well in the Willamette Valley (which is but 100 miles long and 50 miles wide, yet holds most of the people who live in the very large state of Oregon), but few of them ever establish themselves in the wild. Our firs residence when we came here in 1986 was in an apartment complex called Magnolia Manor after its many Southern Magnolias.