Nature Quote - September 10, 2009

“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful.”
- Alice Walker

Alice Walker says here exactly what I've always believed: imperfection is perfect and perfection is, well, boring.

It's not always easy to remember, as we strive for excellence, strive to be better, but it is our imperfections that make us the most interesting!

The same goes for photography. You'll find in my collection of photographs that none of the specimens are perfect - always a bug here or a burnt spot there. Symmetry just slightly askew. (If that isn't a metaphor for life, I don't know what is.)

Rather than focusing solely on a subject's flaw(s), I try to consider it an interesting part of the flower's "face" - a mark of being real, living and growing in an imperfect world.

And then they become even more beautiful.

http://www.worldofcolorgallery.com

Nature Quote - May 11, 2009 - Purple

The wonderful wild moss verbena (Verbena tenuisecta) are blooming with abandon here on the Gulf Coast. Perfect purple wildflowers that practically carpet the roadsides and trail sides, moving in wherever there's an inch of room and blooming from April till November. I love them almost as much as the butterflies do. So, in honor of the valiant, violet, vagrant verbena. . .

"I think it annoys God if you walk by the color purple in a field
and don't notice."
- Alice Walker
From The Color Purple

To learn more about verbena, visit the Verbena tenuisecta page at the USDA Plants Database.

There are many varieties of verbena that have been hybridized for use in home gardens (right now I've got both a royal purple variety and a red-with-white-center variety in my front garden), consider adding them to your garden for care-free beauty and lots of butterflies!

To see a photograph I took of a white garden verbena, check out Fresh.

http://www.worldofcolorgallery.com