I love gardening. I spend so much time (and money) on flowers. I baby them, I water them, I talk to them (yes, I talk to them, so what?). It's such good therapy to work outside in the dirt. I plant and weed and nurture and love every minute of it. My soul breathes in my garden. It makes me giddy to have my hands dirty and smell the dirt. I get mad when I have to stop working in the yard and come in to fix supper. I'd rather not eat if it means I have to leave the yard.   So, now it's fall. I love fall for the colors and the feeling in the air. I love the smells of fall and the crispness you can feel in the air. BUT....this means that my flowers look like pitiful, neglected orphans. It breaks my heart to see my flowers dying. This is the time to pull them up (annuals) and throw them on the compost pile. I HATE this job. It's almost physically painful for me to do this. Last fall, I just left them planted, thinking this might be less painful, but it didn't. It made it worse. I would look out on the back yard and see them brown and withered in their spots and it was a worse reminder than it would have been to just pull them up and put them to rest. I finally just did the dirty deed and got rid of them.   This year I found the most perfect hot pink geraniums I had ever seen. They were glorious all summer. They were even more glorious as we went into fall. I can't part with them. I have decided to pull them up and try to save them over the winter in my basement. I've read that you can pull them up, knock off all the dirt and hang them upside down in the basement and they will come back in the spring. I'm crossing my fingers and giving this a try. I've spent a small fortune on all my flowers and this should save me some money next spring. HA! who am I kidding. I will just have more flowers, not more money.   There is a little house that I pass quite often. A sweet little lady lives there. She has artificial flowers in her flower beds. ALL OF HER FLOWER BEDS. It's so funny to drive by her house in the winter and still see the bright colors of her "garden". Bless her heart, I guess she couldn't stand to see them die in the fall either. I won't do that, don't worry.