-
Maurice Utrillo rose in my Tucson garden (#FOTD)
It’s been awhile since I’ve participated in Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge. I need to get back to taking pictures of my garden now that spring is here. We just planted this Maurice Utrillo rose last weekend. It’s part of the Painters Collection of striped roses inspired by the French impressionists. We collect striped roses, at least as much as our small city garden allows. See more of our roses, most of them striped.
-
Garden pix and more COVID memes (Weekend Coffee Share #31)
Good morning and happy Friday! It’s supposed to be 91F today here at Camp WTF, and it’s still March. W.T.F. The worst part? In 2 months, I’ll be ready to kill for a day when it’s only 91. OK, I’ll stop whining. Welcome to the Weekend Coffee Share, hosted by Natalie the Explorer! Grab a drink, pull up a seat, and let’s get to it.
-
Skunk cabbage (Lysichiton americanus)
Posted for Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge. Need more flowers in your life? Check out Cee’s blog as well as my flower of the day posts.
-
Survivors of the first frost
Winter has finally arrived in Tucson. As I write this post, it’s 32F outside, and there’s frost on most of the plants. Goodbye, rose in bloom. Goodbye, New Guinea impatiens. Goodbye, sunny orange zinnias. Fortunately, the tomatoes and basil are planted against the side of our brick house and appear to be unfrozen. The citrus trees look irritated, but they should be fine. We even harvested our first lemon! And nothing seems to stop the orange bells (the pretty flowers in the header pic). They bloomed almost all year, though they too look a little irritated at being so cold. Here’s what remains of the fruits (literally) of our labor:…
-
Rock and Roll Rosebud (#FOTD)
It’s literally sunshine and roses in my garden right now. We don’t really have fall color here in Tucson. I’m a little jealous when I see other bloggers posting beautiful photos of red and yellow fall leaves, but then I remember that I won’t have to shovel snow or endure 6 months of rain, and I stop complaining. Now that the weather has cooled off here in Satan’s Anus, the garden is perking up, the tomatoes are threatening to eat the house, and the roses are blooming like crazy. For Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge, meet Rock and Roll, one of our favorite striped roses (Of course we…
-
Camille Pissarro Rose (#FOTD)
Cee’s Flower of the Day post today is a lovely portrait of fall leaves. We don’t really have fall leaves here in Tucson. I vaguely remember one neighbor’s tree providing a bit of fall color last year–in December. Right now, my garden is full of flowers, bigger and brighter now that the weather isn’t so hot. I think I’ve mentioned on here before that my husband and I have a thing for striped roses. We bought this one last spring at Lowe’s, and it bloomed all through a Tucson summer. Want to see more flowers? Take a look at my Flower of the Day archive and Cee’s wonderful blog.
-
#FOTD: Apple blossoms from my Flagstaff garden
The gorgeous pink dogwood blooms in Cee’s Flower of the Day today reminded me of this photo, which I took in the early days of the pandemic, when I was still living in Flagstaff. Part of my stay-sane-during-pandemic strategy was to spend as much time outside as I could, so I’d take breaks between Zoom meetings to walk the garden and take pictures. It was a bit surreal, watching the garden come back to life as the world shut down.
-
New story coming out, bird rescue drama, and more (Weekend Coffee Share #2)
Good morning and happy Saturday! Welcome to my second post for the Weekend Coffee Share. Grab the beverage of your choice, get comfortable, and let’s chat. It’s Saturday morning as I write this, so let’s pretend we’re sitting on the back patio, smelling the roses and watching the bees work the cinnamon basil flowers. In last week’s post, I told you about our drive to Madera Canyon, but that was only half of our weekend adventures. I’ll tell you the other half in a minute, but first: Big news: my story will be on a podcast! I have a short story coming out as a radio play! It’s due out…
-
We love our striped roses (#FOTD)
Today’s entry in Cee’s Flower of the Day photo challenge is a bud from our Rock & Roll rose. This poor thing has suffered through two moves and a ridiculous amount of neglect. We bought it in Southern California in about 2012. We dug it up in 2013 and stuffed it in a pot when we moved to Flagstaff, then planted it in our backyard, where it was abused by grasshoppers all summer and froze all winter. We eventually moved it to the front yard, where it would get more attention and better soil. Then when we moved to Tucson in 2020, we dug it up and stuffed it in…
-
Bloom on an organ pipe cactus, Stenocereus thurberi (#FOTD)
Yes, I’m back with yet another cactus blossom for Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge. This one is on the organ pipe cactus in my front yard. Organ pipes are somewhat rare in Tucson. They’re native to an area southwest of here in the borderlands of Arizona (USA) and Sonora (Mexico). They even have their own national monument, named, fittingly enough, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Tucson is supposed to be a little too cold for them, but apparently the one in my yard doesn’t read botanical texts or garden guides. It just grows happily in front of my house, making magnificent blooms like this one. Or this one: Learn…