Today is the day!

After all that hoo-ha about my keynote: today is the day I finally give it. The 112 conference attendees and I will have spent 5 days together, with several other instructors, at Longwood Gardens. I did a similar trip with the organization (called Out of Chicago) last August at Chicago Botanic. Last summer, I was still very much recovering from the house fire. On top of it all Jack the puggle–my beloved sidekick of 17 years–died while I was at the conference. And, yet, even with all that upheaval, I knew that this conference was/is special. It is a self-selecting group that signs up for a 5-day garden photography conference after all. So I chose this image of the dried daylilies because I think the colors look royal and the up-stretched petals triumphal–in other words celebratory!

dehydrator dried daylilies (Hemerocallis)