The first of the Santana Hibiscus flowers opened this weekend. I love these miniature hibiscus hybrid flowers for their vermilion color and bright yellow stamens. Photo taken in the patio today. Click on the image to enlarge.
June 2010
Pencil Cholla Cactus
I can honestly say that this Pencil Cholla Cactus is growing in our back yard. Not our yard in California, of course, but on our recently purchased Arizona property. I took this photo on June 10th while we were on the property talking to our contractor about the placement of the house and RV pad.
According to Desert Tropicals, Pencil Cholla is also called the Desert Christmas Cactus due to its olive-sized red fruit that appears in December. The tiny flowers appear in the spring months and disappear in summer.
I’m really looking forward to having a cactus garden at the new place including this Pencil Cholla and one or two Palo Verde trees already on the property. Click on the image to enlarge.
The Annoying Bleat of the Administration
After the Oval Office speech and really brief meeting with the CEO of BP, Captain Kickass is really starting to be annoying . . .
STEREO Spacecraft Approaching Diametric Opposition
Why would that be significant? Well, it would allow for a full 4PI (360×360°) view of the sun. The animated movie of the sun on STEREO’s Website currently has a gap in the coverage of the sun. The spacecraft are in a heliocentric orbit drifting away from the Earth, one leading and one lagging. This diagram shows the current position of spacecraft A (ahead) and B (behind). The scale is in astronomical units, the average distance between the earth and sun.
Sun-monitoring instrumentation on spacecraft like SOHO and STEREO have gone a long way in discovering what makes the sun behave in mysterious ways. Also, the data coming back (when not intentionally distorted by the IPCC, the CRU or NASA’s James Hansen) can be used to chart the relationship between solar activity and global climate.
Red Bird of Paradise
From mid-spring until late fall, this beautiful shrub blooms continuously with these colorful flowers. I have loved them for years and I was very disappointed that they don’t grow well in California coastal areas. I brought one home from a nursery in Indio, CA, a few years ago but it didn’t take to our coastal weather. Now, that we’re going to live in Arizona, I’m looking forward to having them in our desert garden there.
The shrub is called “Red Bird of Paradise” or “The Pride of Barbados.” They are native to Central America, parts of South America and the West Indies. Desert Tropicals, a Phoenix based garden information website, has information on cultivation and care of these pretty shrubs. They recommend planting them six feet apart and after summer in November or so, to cut them almost to the ground to keep them compact. In mid-spring, they will grow quite rapidly to between six and fifteen feet high.
I took the picture above when we were in Arizona last week. Click on the image to enlarge.
White Epiphyllum Flower
After we returned to our California residence, we found that the white epiphyllum “orchid cactus” was in bloom. Once a year, these beautiful flowers adorn our garden. Click on the image to enlarge.
Sun Ejects a Plasma Ring
Solar activity has been increasing in recent months. This extraordinary video depicts a “plasma ring” coronal mass ejection (CME) as captured by SOHO. Watch the lower right corner for the ring ejection.