It's Started Again.......

As soon as I saw this flower, I knew it had to be my Blip for the day.

For the last 4 to 6 weeks my Gerber was looking really poorly.   The green leaves turned black, brittle and fell off.  It stopped flowering and got generally, pretty rough.  A couple of days ago, I saw a bud, reaching up through the old leaves.  I took my scissors, cut away all of the spent leaves and underneath all of that stuff.......   I found green buds of new leaves.  By clearing away all of the dead stuff, I let the sun reach in and stimulate the flowers!    Today I found this bright red flower looking up at me.  I was so glad to see the resurgence of my plant.  This is the 10 or 11 summer I have had the plant.
        A quick history; I flew this plant home from New Jersey.  It was given to my by my cousins wife.   I never thought it would last this long.  But I am very glad it has.  It flew on a plane from Philadelphia, lived through many Florida winters (we sometimes get frosts, burning-scorching summer suns, and drowning hurricane rains and awful, howling winds!  It's lived to bloom another summer!