Friday flowers

Macro Monday

Friday flowers…with bees

Lens-Artists Photo Challenge #101 – One Single Flower

Cee’s Len’s-Artists Photo Challenge this week features single flowers. I realized I’m spoiled for choice, but that’s not a bad problem to have.

My first photo, an iris, was taken with an iPhone and has been one of my most popular photos. Of course, the light is what makes it and I never again could get that same light. Then the older man who grew these beauties on his tree lawn died and the family dug them up.

“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the mind.”
― Luther Burbank

Now that we live in the desert, I think it only fitting that I should include a shot of a cactus flower. Although you might not think it, the cacti have some of the most beautiful blooms you’ll ever see. Just be careful when getting a closeup!

“I will be the gladdest thing under the sun! I will touch a hundred flowers and not pick one.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay

Friday flowers…purple

Two-fer Tuesday

This is the action video that goes with the bee shot I shared some time ago. Please spend the minute and two seconds to watch the entire video so you see why it’s a two-fer.

Friday flowers…curvaceous

Friday flowers…pretty in pink

Although quite poisonous, oleanders of various colors decorate the Arizona landscape everywhere. Presenting as bushes or trees, depending upon how you prune or don’t prune, they make perfect “walls” to protect homes from view, create a boundary, or just provide shade. But keep them away from children and animals (or vice versa) and don’t burn the wood. The fumes are also bad for you.

What makes oleanders attractive is a combination of beauty and hardiness. They stand up well to heat and dry conditions and as we know from only two months experience, that makes them super stars in the desert landscape!

Friday flowers…companions

Companion planting is a gardening technique, but I have no idea whether or not humans had anything to do with these two types of flowers growing together. Either way, they go well together.

Friday flowers…Pride-of-Barbados

I saw these on my walk this morning and was instantly enamored. Learning their name (aka peacock flowers, dwarf poincianas and red bird-of-paradise) only made me love them more.

By the way, it was a 17-lemon walk!!! I didn’t want to carry all those lemons for a several mile walk, so I hid the bag behind a nearby bougainvillea and picked them up on the way home. More lemonade tomorrow.

Happy Friday and have a wonderful weekend!