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San Diego Botanic Gardens makes the list
The San Diego Botanic Gardens made the Huffington Post‘s list of “10 Spectacular Gardens Around the World.”
Here are a few pictures to make you salivate:
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County?
I can recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor
Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I can highly recommend Russel Ray (that’s me!)
Friday Flower Fiesta #18 — Coronado for Memorial Day
I had a very busy week and almost didn’t get out and about to get some flower pictures for our Friday Flower Fiesta. Have no fear, though. I did.
Memorial Day weekend is when I celebrate one of my anniversaries. I have four:
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May 26, 1994 — The day we met
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July 1, 1995 — The day we started shacking up together
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July 31, 2004 — The day we got civil unionized
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October 30, 2008 — The day we got married (we did it in California because marriage was legal at the time)
I’m very much a romantic, although Jim would way a devious romantic. I have a full weekend of activities planned for our 18th anniversary of meeting.
We started our anniversary weekend with a great meal at Costa Azul on Coronado Island, home to Coronado Beach, named today as the #1 beach in America. I chose Coronado because the Island is always full of beautiful flowers, flowers that love the cooler temperatures and higher humidity that we don’t have on the mainland.
Without further addoo (that’s Texan for adiuex), today’s Friday Flower Fiesta:
Picture 1 – Aloe
Picture 2 – Lily of the Nile bud
Picture 3 – Lily of the Nile
Picture 4 – Lily of the Nile
Picture 5 – Canna lily
Picture 6 – Unknown
Picture 7 – Biggest, baddest Jacaranda I’ve ever seen
Picture 8 – Rose
Picture 9 – Canna lily
Picture 10 – Hollyhock
Picture 11 – Rose
Picture 12 – Hibiscus
Picture 13 – Hibiscus
Picture 14 – Bird of Paradise
Pictures 12 & 13 of the hibiscus is the most unusual stigma and style that I’ve ever seen on a hibiscus.
Flower parts courtesy of Wikipedia
Folks who have been following me for a while know that I’ve been on a quest for 34 years to find the perfect Bird of Paradise (Picture 14). That’s not it. Probably #3 in my collection. I like it a lot because the background is water. Rarely do I find a Bird of Paradise growing so close to the water that some of the blossoms are hanging over the water.
Looking for real estate services in San Diego County? I can highly recommend
James Frimmer, Realtor with Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re just looking for a home inspector,
I can highly recommend Russel Ray; that’s me!
The San Diego Zoo is more than just a zoo….
Most people go to the San Diego Zoo to see giant pandas, polar bears, elephants, giraffes, and anything else big, moving, and strange.
The San Diego Zoo, however, is more than just a zoo. It’s also an internationally recognized arboretum. Along with the Zoo’s Safari Park, there are over a million plants on 1,900 acres representing 6,500 species, including 280 threatened and endangered ones. There is always something blooming, growing, or simply looking strange:
Picture 1 — Flowers at the entrance to the San Diego Zoo
Picture 2 — Iris
Picture 3 — Iris
Picture 4 — Fern in Fern Canyon
Picture 5 — Aloe
Picture 6 — Palm tree
Picture 7 — Carnivorous plants
Picture 8 — Tree owl on a baobab tree
I’ve been watching the baobab tree in the last picture for about a decade. The scars are from the removal of branches, but it looks like an owl to me. Over the years, the owl continues to grow.
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Friday Flower Fiesta — #6 (March 2, 2012)
Today’s Friday Flower Fiesta is dedicated to Kathy Schowe, a real estate agent with Intero Real Estate in La Quinta, about 90 miles northeast of me. I have known Kathy for a couple of years through a real estate professional networking site. I highly recommend her for anyone needing real estate services in the desert cities of La Quinta, Palm Desert, and Palm Springs. Kathy is an expert on living the desert life.
All pictures copyright 2012 Russel Ray Photos
I had forgotten that Fridays are for my Friday Flower Fiesta and that if I miss a Friday my regular Friday Flower Fiesta readers get upset.
Since I had already done two posts today (Snow pictures from San Diego, California and The Geisel Library at the University of California San Diego) before realizing that it was Friday, I was rushing about wondering what flowers to put in my Friday Flower Fiesta today.
I went to Ralphs a couple of blocks away to get some milk and that’s when I realized that today should be an orange day. Just in those two blocks but two different streets, I found all of these orange flowers:
Roses bloom year-round in San Diego, but orange roses are pretty rare. Most people prefer red.
All pictures copyright 2012 Russel Ray Photos
March and April are when the clivias are blooming. I found a couple of yellow clivias, too, a much rarer clivia color, but it’s not a yellow day. It’s an orange day.
All pictures copyright 2012 Russel Ray Photos
The aloes are coming to the end of their spring blooming but you can still find some around, the laggards. Two different aloes:
All pictures copyright 2012 Russel Ray Photos
February through mid-April is also the spring blooming season for ice plant. If you’re ever in San Diego this time of year, the freeways are covered in purple and pink ice plant. Orange is a much rarer ice plant color.
All pictures copyright 2012 Russel Ray Photos
This is also blooming season for the kangaroo paw, so named because its racemes look like kangaroo paws.
All pictures copyright 2012 Russel Ray Photos
I believe the following is an African daisy, which also tend to bloom year-round in our climate.
All pictures copyright 2012 Russel Ray Photos
Last is one of my favorite flowers, a protea. My wise old grandmother in Kingsville, Texas, used to have a protea bush, but only because I bought it for my little cactus garden before she claimed it as her own. 
All pictures copyright 2012 Russel Ray Photos
All pictures taken by Russel Ray using a Canon 550D camera and a 55-250 Canon lens. Picture framing was done in Corel PaintShop Pro X4.
It’s worth getting off the highways and main side roads
My main vocation is as a home inspector, so I do a lot of traveling from property to property. Whenever I’m out, I’m always looking for picture-worthy possibilities.
Since my inspection this morning was just a couple of miles from me, I chose to take the neighborhood streets rather than the highway and main side roads. I found a most beautiful aloe but couldn’t stop to take pictures, so I made a note of the address and stopped back by on the way home. Here is the aloe:
I was particularly happy today because it rained last night and into mid-morning. That allowed me to focus on the raindrops and get this picture:
