Category Archives: Friday Flower Fiesta
Friday Flower Fiesta (2/1/13) — Visitors
Oh, woe is me. Somehow I lost a day this week even though I always have something scheduled each day.
For some reason, all day yesterday I was thinking that today would be Saturday and that I’d be down in Chula Vista watching the implosion of the old South Bay Power Plant.
Nope. Tomorrow is the implosion.
Today is Friday, which means it’s time for our Friday Flower Fiesta!
Today’s theme is visitors.
I’ll leave it to you to determine why……..lol
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I can recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Friday Flower Fiesta (1/25/13) — The Proteaceae family
One of my favorite plant families is Proteaceae, of which its best known plants are Protea, Banksia, Embothrium, Grevillea, Hakea, Dryandra, Leucadendron, Leucospermum, and Macadamia. If you think Macadamia might be macadamia nuts, well, you would be right. Most of their flowers look like pincushions, which is a common name for many of them.
Except for one King Protea currently blooming near the giraffes at the San Diego Zoo, this family generally blooms when it’s hot and dry. They also don’t like a lot of water, so San Diego’s climate suits them well. Unfortunately, very few plant nurseries carry these beautiful plants, so you’re best ordering them online from some place like Australia or South Africa. If you want to see a great collection here in San Diego, head on out to the Water Conservation Garden at Cuyamaca College in Rancho San Diego (link to Google map) in June and July.
Here are some of my favorite pictures from the Proteaceae family, all of them from either the San Diego Zoo or the Water Conservation Garden:
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I can recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Friday Flower Fiesta — Freeway lilies
I have never really been a fan of day lilies, the reason being that here in San Diego we call them “freeway lilies” because CalTrans plants them along the freeways, and many cities plant them along sidewalks and in street medians. In other words, they are extremely common. One of the reasons why they are so common is because they can take a lot of neglect and still bloom profusely.
Here is the most common of the common freeway lilies:
It’s not a bad choice of flowers, but look at the following day lilies and imagine them being planted along streets and highways instead of the standard yellow, maybe even mixing and matching!
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I can recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Friday Flower Fiesta (January 11, 2013)
These pictures are of flowers that I found blooming throughout my neighborhood this past week. The yellow rose grows in my garden. I consider it a weed because it grows where I don’t want it to grow. I have done everything I can to get rid of it. It won’t transplant, drought won’t kill it, Round-Up won’t kill it, neglect won’t kill it. It is the rose from Dawn of the Living Dead.
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I can recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Friday Flower Fiesta (12-27-12)
As much as I love flowers and creating my Friday Flower Fiesta posts, it’s hard to believe we’ve gone three weeks without one. My apologies to all my Friday Flower Fiesta fans.
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I can recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Friday Flower Fiesta — San Diego winter colors
I know some other parts of the country are covered in white right now, but here in San Diego it’s dry and sunny with lots of color.
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Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I can recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Friday Flower Fiesta — It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature, but it sure is fun!
San Diego gets only about 10½ inches of rain a year. I’ve been in afternoon thunderstorms in my home state of Texas had dropped 10½ inches of rain in a few hours, not to mention hurricanes, of course. San Diego’s Mediterranean climate in terms of temperature means that anything will grow here as long as you meet its watering needs. Consequently, its not unusual for some plants that normally bloom once a year to have two or three blooming periods here. Other plants that normally bloom for three or four months, such as hibiscus, will bloom year round.
Right now is a great time to visit the cooler coastal areas because roses are acting like it’s April instead of November:
Another excellent place to visit right now is the San Diego Zoo. They have both regular hibiscus and giant hibiscus blooming profusely right now.
This next hibiscus picture is one of my favorites, so I was playing around with it in Photoshop. Which one do you think is the original? Which one do you like best?
And from my own garden, my Stapelia just keeps putting out these star-shaped flowers, probably in honor of me!
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Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I can recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
A beautiful but dangerous flower
Today’s Friday Flower Fiesta features only one flower but three pictures of that flower, as well as a little discussion about the flower.
That is a flower of the Datura plant. Common names include moonflower, angel’s trumpet, witches weed, nightshade, thorn apple, Indian apple, devil’s trumpet, jimsonweed, and henbane. Older plant books might also have them listed as Brugmansia plants. However, modern genetics has been able to separate Datura and Brugmansia into two species.
There are two main differences that will help you determine whether your plant is a Datura or a Brugmansia:
Datura is usually a vine with large, erect flowers.
Brugmansia is usually a bush or small tree with large, pendulent flowers.
Both species contain tropane alkaloids in their milky white sap, as well as the flowers. Tropane alkaloids can cause severe skin irritation, blindness, loss of voice, kidney damage, hallucinations, and in some cases, death.
Unfortunately, some children know of their hallucinogic properties and sometimes make Datura or Brugmansia tea to drink. Those same children often suffer permanent vocal chord and kidney damage, and too many have died.
Both Datura and Brugmansia look beautiful. At night the flowers open wide, becoming some of the most aromatic flowers on Earth. However, if you brush up against the leaves of the Datura species during the day, you’ll stink as bad as a skunk.
At the home I owned from 1999-2001, I had several Daturas and Brugmansias, and as soon as the sun went down, the aroma could be smelled blocks away. I did have to wear long sleeves and long pants whenever I pruned them because I have a severe skin reaction to the sap.
If you have either of these two plants at your house, protect them from children, dogs, cats, and unknowing adults.
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Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I can recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Friday Flower Fiesta (October 19, 2012)
Today’s Friday Flower Fiesta comprises a bunch of reject pictures that were in my “Save for the future” folder. Well, the future has arrived.
These pictures had all sorts of things wrong with them, such as ants on the petals, damaged petals, garbage in the picture, weird backgrounds, dots and spots here and there, etc. All taken care of in Photoshop CS6.
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I can recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
Friday Flower Fiesta (October 12, 2012)
Red and yellow flowers have always been the bane of my flower photography. I never could get the pictures to look anything like the flower. It’s the reason why I made the Friday Flower Fiesta in red and yellow. I figured that would be the only red or yellow flower you’d ever see in my blog.
Then, a couple of months ago, I was at a flower art exhibit downtown and the artist happened to hear me when I casually commented, “I wish I could get my red and yellow flowers to look like those.” He told me the secret, and it shall remain a secret, except for those willing to bribe me; I have a PayPal account.
Today’s Friday Flower Fiesta is dedicated to all the Red people, and the Blue people who are forced to live in Red states.
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Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I can recommend Russel Ray — that’s me!
