A little gloomy around here

Well, I'm not going to lie to you, things could be better. A whole bunch of people at my office were laid off yesterday. Last week I went to a funeral. And with the exception of two rooms -- the kitchen and bathroom, obviously the most important rooms ever invented -- most of my house is still an avalanche of boxes, bags, piles and many other varieties of mess. If you know me at all, you know what a very special brand of torture this is. Fortunately our house is big enough that I can still create tiny pieces of pretty and organized outside of the moving wreckage. For instance, see the lovely roses I picked from my front yard on Sunday night:

Then again, there are other parts of the yard that aren't looking quite so vibrant. One plant in particular is ailing something awful, and every time I go out there it looks worse. I don't know what to do. I'm not even sure what kind of plant it is, and I have no idea how to find out. What am I going to do, google "Big leaves, crispy, brown edges"? So I took a picture of my dying plant, and maybe you can tell me what it is. Perhaps this clue will help: When I inspected it closely, I saw some old black sticks that had little crunchy, dead blossoms on the end. Please, save my crunchy blossoms!