One more time

The mussaenda drops bracts by the dozen daily now, along with yellowing leaves, making my morning cleanup patrol a little more challenging.

I need scissors to cut the spent stems (you can see what I mean here), and the other day I had to get out the long kitchen tongs to pluck clumps of dead bracts out of the Tahitian gardenias we put in the front bed, where the interplanted impatiens have grown too high and too full to let me step in and reach them directly. And yet.

The few bloom heads that do survive are still putting out flowers, little half-inch-high shots of joy in those pink pillows of bract.

They're not leaving for the season without a fight.