A Burst of Color

Whether the flower or the color is the focus I do not know. I do know the flower is painted large to convey my experience with the flower – and what is my experience if it is not the color? ~Georgia O'Keeffe

We planted two trichocereus cactus in our front yard when we moved here and they have faithfully given us spectacular color each year. However, because the past winter was so damaging to so many of our plants we were unsure if they would perform as usual this spring. But once again nature has surprised us with its resiliency and we are  enjoying a burst of color in the garden.  It will be short-lived like most cactus blossoms, but the vivid color will remain in our memories until next year.

A Hedgehog in Bloom

Although they can look fearsome with their spines and prickles, or just plain ugly, cacti are transformed into strange creatures of beauty when their delicate flowers appear. ~Unknown

My hedgehog cactus (Echinocereus engelmannii) bloomed today and already some critter has eaten part of the first bloom. Life in the dessert, I'm afraid.  The beauty is always fleeting.

Springtime in the Garden

"And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth's dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest."
-  Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Sensitive Plant  

Today has been a lovely day.  In spring we often have very windy days and yesterday was like that--not a day for wandering in the garden.  But today has been calm and sunny and so I just had to go check and see how my garden was doing.  As you can see it is in fine fettle. 

This is my perennial garden. It is to the side of our back patio and I can even see it from my kitchen. We had such a lovely garden back East and I miss it, expecially in spring. Since we planted these perennials, however, I feel happy. There are sages, valerian, penstemon, and guara. I hope to continue planting flowering perennials each year. I can never have enough blooms in my garden.

 Here are some close-ups of my Hill Country penstemon--we planted this in honor of my mother-in-law who misses the Hill Country of Texas now she's in California--my valerian, and some of my sages.

This is the southwestern corner of my back garden.  The little leaf ash has regained its feathery leaves at last.  It is a semi-deciduous tree, but lost all its leaves this winter because of the unusual cold.  The euphorbia in the foreground is a superb plant. Its yellow flowers appear early and last and last until autumn.  The little hedgehog cactus is getting ready to burst into bloom.  We rescued it from along the road on one of our walks.  Javelinas had been feasting on it and dug it up completely.  As a rule we never take plants from the wild, but it would have died otherwise.