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#FOTD: Trillium from my Portland garden
For Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge, another throwback to my Portland gardening days. Taken April 7, 2007. I posted another trillium picture back in January, when I was looking over memories of times and gardens past. We don’t have trilliums here in Tucson–trilliums don’t have spines or thorns, and I believe it’s a local ordinance that anything grown here must be able to stab you. I don’t miss the rainy Portland winters, but I do–occasionally–miss slogging through my garden between showers to see if the trilliums were blooming yet. After months of grey and rain, I’d cling to any sign of spring the way an aphid clings to…
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#FOTD: African daisies
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#FOTD: Budding cactus
Today’s entry for Cee’s flower of the day photo challenge is a simple snapshot, taken while I was on a lunchtime walk at work. It’ll win no prizes, but I couldn’t walk past this adorable blooming cactus without capturing it. Since moving to Tucson, I’ve become completely charmed by cacti. I’ve always been a lush cottage garden sort of person, but now that I’m surrounded by desert flora, I’m learning to appreciate the shapes and textures of these amazing plants. See the hint of rust and red in the spines? And the cheerful, whimsical shape of the plant and its pointy buds? I plead guilty to personifying plants, but this…
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#FOTD: Trillium
For Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge. When I lived in Portland, I loved anything that bloomed in winter or early spring, anything that added a little color to those dark, rainy days. In the late 90s, we salvaged a bunch of native trilliums from a construction site (with permission), and they bloomed faithfully every year.
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#FOTD: Spring crocus
When I lived in wintery places like Portland and Flagstaff, I loved crocuses, because they bloomed so early and brought a little color to the drab late winter landscape. Hang on a little longer, they seemed to say. Sunshine and light are coming. That seems an apt message for this time of year and these times we live in. Hang on, y’all. Sunshine and light are coming.
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#FOTD: Coke can flower
For Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge. We live only a mile or so from the Tucson Botanical Garden, and we decided to check it out during Winter Break. We had to cancel our Winter Break travel plans due to the Microbe that Must not be Named, so we are exploring our new city instead (outside only, masked and socially distanced). According to the audio tour: This shady barrio (neighborhood) garden came to life with the help of local Mexican-American gardeners and honors the distinctive gardens and yards found in Tucson’s Mexican-American neighborhoods… the distinctive decorative style featur[es] ‘found objects,’ family mementos and whimsical use of recycled materials. https://tucsonbotanical.org/tours/nuestro-jardin-audio-tour/…
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#FOTD: Frozen mums
For Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge. When I lived in Flagstaff, I left plants and flowers standing after frost kill, because they provided wildlife habitat and protection for the crown of the plant (and because I was lazy). I’m not a winter person, but I learned to look closely to appreciate the textures of flower heads and stalks in the snow.
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#FOTD: Rocky Mountain Bee Plant (Cleome serrulata)
Like a lot of us still in quarantine, I’ve been trying to get out for walks throughout the day. I walk early in the morning, which is a great time to snap pictures of some of our local wildflowers. Today’s post is the second in what I’m going to optimistically call a series for Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge, featuring some of the native flora in my rural Flagstaff neighborhood. Today’s entry is our native cleome, Cleome serrulata, also called Rocky Mountain Bee Plant. Like the sacred datura (Datura wrightii) I featured in my last #FOTD post, this plant is both beautiful and kinda ugly. The plant itself…
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#FOTD: Sacred Datura (Datura wrightii)
I’ve been snapping photos for Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge for the last two weeks or so, but I keep forgetting about a key step in the process: posting them. D’oh! On the upside: that means I have a backlog that should net me at least a few days of quick and easy posts, which is a good thing, because life is a little, um, *full* right now. Today’s flower is a wildflower/weed (depends on your perspective) here in Flagstaff. Datura wrightii or sacred datura is a member of the nightshade family, quite poisonous, drought tolerant, a hallucinogenic, almost impossible to kill–and both beautiful and ugly. As I’ve…
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#FOTD: Nymphaea ‘Perry’s Almost Black’
To get me back in the habit of noticing the beauty that surrounds me, I’m trying Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge. I won’t really post every day, but when something pretty is blooming, I’ll share. This is the first water lily I bought for our pond, ‘Perry’s Almost Black.’ It’s a hardy one–it’s survived three Flagstaff winters and come back bigger every spring. I took this picture with my iPhone around mid-morning, so the sun washed out some of the color. It’s actually quite a bit darker than it looks, though certainly not “almost black” (people who name cultivars lie almost as much as politicians). What’s blooming in…
Janet Alcorn
Suspense | Horror | Romance
