As the summer season winds to a close, the Red Bird of Paradise Flowers continue to attract hummingbirds, bees and butterflies. I captured this lovely black butterfly in my camera as the little critter lit on one of the flowers in the courtyard.
Click on the image to enlarge.
When we got back from our three-week vacation, we discovered that the Devil’s Tongue Barrel Cactus was covered with flowers and buds. It is sure to put on a good show as second spring arrives in our part of Arizona.
This cactus was in a pot when we lived in California, but now it is in the ground in my rock and cactus garden. It sure seems happy to be in the Arizona Desert!
About a month ago, this Astrophytum was in bloom. Yesterday and today, it has open flowers again. This cactus seems to have flowers several times a year like our Bishop’s Cap Cactus.
The latter, unfortunately, has not had flowers this year. We have had that cactus for almost twenty years and maybe it’s through with flowers.
This week we bought a bunch of cut pink daisies for the vase along with some purple flowers whose name we don’t know. The colors went well with each other, so I didn’t really care about what they were called.
The flower concession used to label their flowers but lately they have only been stamping them as “cut flowers, monochromatic.” Regardless, we love to have flowers no matter if we know what they are or not.
We went grocery shopping on Wednesday this week primarily because we have plans on Thursday which is our regular day for it and secondarily, it is the first Wednesday of the month which is senior discount day (we saved 10% on our tab).
I made my regular stop at the flower concession counter and found some Variegated Yellow Carnations which I bought along with some Baby’s Breath. They are now in the vase on the sofa table and look very pretty as you can see. Click on the image to enlarge.
We enjoy raising cactus in the wild, in the rock and cactus garden and in the courtyard. When there are flowers on them, we both like to take photos of the beautiful blooms.
Above are a couple of images of today’s Astrophytum (Star Cactus) flowers open and I took a picture of Verna doing the picture taking of the flowers.
Click on the image to enlarge.
