Last Rose of Summer

I confess that I have not been a faithful blogger. I’m trying to improve. But I could not let summer completely pass without sharing a few of my favorite flower pictures. This year I grew zinnias, gardenias, and hydrangeas so I’m posting pictures of those. The blue hydrangeas were a view from my kitchen window. The gardenias bloomed early in the summer; the zinnias and white hydrangeas have bloomed most of the summer. I love how the white hydrangeas turn into a sage green color after blooming. They also dry very beautifully and can be used in arrangements. The picture of the roses blooming on the wall is not part of my garden, but a lovely one I found from www.sxc.hu. It reminds me of the poem—the Last Rose of Summer.

I hope all of you have had a nice summer. It has been a quick one for me—we took a trip to Tennessee, South Carolina, and Georgia to visit relatives, work on genealogy, and visit the University of Georgia-- my oldest son is considering attending graduate school there. We love to visit historical places, so we visited the Andrew Johnson home in Greenville, Tennessee, and Jonesbourgh, the oldest town in Tennessee. We also visited a quaint little town in South Carolina—Abbeville, which has been almost untouched by the rest of the world.

This was the hometown of my husband’s grandmother and we visited an old ancestral home-- the beautiful old Queen Anne Victorian. There were some wonderful antique shops along the way and, and of course I could not resist stopping in to look for a few treasures. It was a good summer.