Long-time readers know that I love photography, and I love the digital photograph editing programs, especially Photoshop.
I also enjoy taking my photographs into Photoshop and messing them up so that they no longer look like photographs.
Here’s a selection of messed up cactus and succulent photographs from yesterday:
I have never done any type of photography that involved people. No portraits, no weddings, no graduations, no reunions. I just didn’t want the hassle of dealing with people.
I never did certain other types of photography, like macro photography, because I deemed the equipment to be too expensive relative to the results. That has changed. Recently I saw some extraordinarily awesome macro photographs using a lens that was within my price range: the Tamron 90mm F/2.8 Di Macro 1:1 VC USD. Sure glad they never named cars like that!
I bought one.
Following is my first set of pictures taken with my new macro lens. You just knew they were going to be either plants or Zoey the Cool Cat, yes? Well, Zoey the Cool Cat was not being cooperative so you’ll just have to make do with macro pictures of these plants. Happy Friday!
Poinsettia
Many people think the red things are the flowers.
They are not. Those are flower brachts.
The green things here are the flower buds
but the flowers aren’t much bigger.
The flowers are what plant people call “insignificant.”
African violet
I learned a lot about nature after my wise old grandmother adopted me
in December 1965. One of her joys was her collection of African Violets. Although I have an extraordinarily green thumb, I never could get
African Violets to do well after I bought them. Until this year.
This little one is on its second bloom cycle with me.
Aeonium ‘Sunburst’
I am a huge fan of Aeoniums, and this is one of my favorites.
Mother of Thousands (Kalanchoe delagoensis)
This has been one of my favorite plants since I was 11.
Little plantlets grow on the edge of the leaves.
They drop off, hit the ground, and start their own lives.
This particular one is ‘Pink Butterflies.”
I have no idea what this is and the pot I bought it in didn’t have a name
other than “Succulent.” As a friend of mine who owns a succulent nursery
likes to say about plant names, “Who cares? If you like it, buy it.”
I bought it.
Milkwort (Polygala myrtifolia)
Seven of these plants were growing at our new home.
Since I think they are kind of pretty, I kept them.
Pussy Willow (Salix sp.)
When I lived in northern Utah (1961-1965),
pussy willows grew everywhere. I liked them.
They are long lasting and look great in a large vase.
This is from a group that IÂ bought in 1999.
These last three pictures are Osteospermum flower buds.
I was experimenting with various f/stop settings
to give me different depths of field.
Which one is your favorite?
Many decades ago when I was but a youth of 11 and living with my wise old grandmother, she gave me a small area in her yard where I could have a garden. She had the most beautiful yard, except for that one area where she could get nothing to grow.
She delegated that area to me, and I went to work, turning it into a cactus rock garden. I had dry rivers, a dry lake, and lots of rocks.
I went with a friend and his parents to a huge cactus nursery almost a hundred miles away and came home with some unique cactus to plant in my little garden. I had no idea what kind of flowers, if any, those little plants would have.
The sun hit my little garden from about 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. It was relentless, and hot. This was deep south Texas.
One day I came home from school at 3:30 and found my little cactus garden all abloom with flowers of all colors and sizes. Some of the smallest cactus plants had the biggest and brightest flowers.
Ever since that day I have been a fan of cactus and succulents.
At one point 18 years ago I had a 3,984-SF house on 1.83 acres of land with a 35,000-gallon pool and a 5,000-gallon spa. The whole place, inside and out, was an arboretum with over 500 different species of plants. When Jim and I no longer could physically take care of that property, and downsized, I decided to depend on the San Diego Zoo, Safari Park, SeaWorld, San Diego Botanic Garden, and Balboa Park for my gardening fix. I have only a few plants at home now, all of them succulents so that Zoey the Cool Cat won’t get a cactus needle in her nose.
After all the rain we have had this year, my little succulents seem to be perking up, and yesterday one of them bloomed:
That is a Lithops species, commonly known as living stones, pebble plants, mimicry plants, and flowering stones. They have only two thick leaves and no true stem, and the flower comes up between the leaves. They are small plants, usually no more than an inch above the soil surface. Very easy to grow with a unique appearance and beautiful flowers.
All succulents are cactus, but not all cactus are succulents. For the most part, succulents do not have those nasty thorns, which makes them that much more pleasant to grow. For more information and pictures of these little ones, see the Wikipedia entry on Lithops.
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Orchid, orchid, orchid, aloe, succulent, leucospermum, unknown
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My wise old grandmother was a Master Gardener before there was such a thing. She is the one who developed my love of gardening, To be fair, though, she also is the reason why I have never had a grass lawn, have a great dislike for oleanders and roses unless they are on someone else’s property, and love cactus and succulents, especially if they are on my property.
She used to fertilize her grass like there was no tomorrow. Who am I lying to? No she didn’t. I—me! the one and only!—used to fertilize her grass like there was no tomorrow…. under her direction, of course. I was the one who had the privilege of mowing the lawn twice a week, pruning the oleanders after a norther came through and froze them, pruning the roses so they would bloom more (and have more thorns!).
One day I asked her if I could have a garden. She said yes and took me to the worst part of the property, where the heated wind from the air conditioning compressor (picture â–ş) killed everything during the summer months, and told me to make something out of it. I was so depressed. Instead of getting a beautiful garden to call my own, I had a patch of hard, dry, brown soil kept that way by a huge, ugly compressor.
I was able to block the compressor, and it’s heated windstorm, by building a rock wall around it. Then I planted cactus and succulents amongst the rocks, creating a rock garden.
I was reminded of my little cactus and succulent rock garden recently when I was traipsing around La Jolla, a San Diego enclave of the rich and famous. I came across this:
(click on image for a larger, more detailed view)
That, of course, is much more elaborate than the little rock wall I built, and theirs is designed to hide the ugly stairs leading from the street up to the house. The landscapers were still building it, and I jokingly commented, “Wow! Nice! I wonder how much that cost.” To which the landscaper replied, “It’s expensive.” That much I could have guessed….
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Late last month I went to a Woody gathering at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas. I got there well before they opened, so I walked around nearby neighborhoods looking for good subject for Photographic Art. One of the houses that I found looked like this:
As you can see, it has nothing but cactus and succulents in its landscaping. Long-time readers know that I’m a big cactus and succulent fan. I spent a couple of hours taking pictures of his garden. Here are some of my favorites, made into Photographic Art:
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Back in 1966, shortly after my wise old grandmother had adopted me, I asked her if I could have a small plot of land for a garden. She had the most beautiful gardens in all of Kingsville, Texas. Something was always growing and blooming — morning glories, Christmas cactus, poinsettias, oleanders, nandinas, ligustrums, roses….. and that’s just the stuff planted in the ground. Her hanging gardens were second only to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
She said, “Yes,” and gave me the hottest spot in her yard, right around the air conditioning compressor. Air conditioning compressors put out a lot of hot wind, and she never got anything nice to grow there.
Enter Russel Ray Kirk Jones Kirk, the 11-year-old juvenile delinquent from Utah.
A friend, Richard Schmidt (whom I would love to find some day!), had a garden in his yard, and he introduced me to cactus and succulents. He and his parents took me down to McAllen, Texas, one Saturday to a cactus nursery. I came home with a box full of cactus and succulents. Those plants loved it in the hot sun by the hot, windy air conditioner, and soon I had cactus flowers and succulents blooming right along side my wise old grandmother’s beautiful flowers.
By the time I graduated from high school, my friends were calling me the Cactus Man. When I dropped my “Kirk Jones Kirk” last names and simply became Russel Ray, I also switched from cactus to succulents. Many of my friends now know me as the Succulent Man. Succulents are my speciality.
Yesterday I went for my annual summer visit of the San Diego Botanic Garden:
I found my long-lost relatives, the succulent people:
 
Look at that last picture, at the lady’s chest, and you can see a necklace, a broach, and two boobs created by the succulents. Don’t believe me? Proof:
Vision, people, vision! Use your creativity, just like the succulent people creators did! 🙂
I also loved her dress:
The San Diego Botanic Garden is where the Sapphire Tower is, and there were several blooming yesterday.
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I recommend
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Century 21 Award, DRE #01458572
If you’re looking for a home inspector,
I recommend Russel Ray (that’s me!)
