I'm just here for the garden

I can always count on Gigi to pose for a picture.

I've come to the conclusion that most of the good things about the South are botanical. It's a great place to be, or to grow, most forms of plant life. Magnolias, crepe myrtles, azaleas, and tulip poplars thrive around here, along with bugs, spiders, snakes, and their human counterparts, the bible-thumping, gun-toting, mouth-breathing rednecks that make the South largely coterminous with the Bible Belt. So-called "southern hospitality" is largely mythical, but the same heat and miserable humidity that makes people stupid and lazy is ideal for a wide variety of plant life.

This is a crepe myrtle that I planted when
we moved here, about 16 years ago.
I think I'll cut it back this year.

A magnolia blossom from a tree near our house.

The garden has been really well this year and still looks really good. A couple things have finished and a few others have overgrown. I'm going to trim some of them back because there's still plenty of time for new sprouts and blooms before frost.

This clump of white crepe myrtle were originally
planted along the front porch. I moved them, not really
expecting them to live. It turns out that it's actually
pretty hard to kill crepe myrtle.