Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Damsel

Red Bird of Paradise
Flowers Now Opening

Now that the 2023 Red Bird of Paradise Flowers are opening, the butterflies seem to know that they are available for nectar browsing. This little beauty visited this morning.

These flowers dominate the courtyard in the summertime. This is one of the first flowers to appear this year.

The “Red Bird of Paradise” a.k.a. “Pride of Barbados” shrubs are ready to “take over” in the courtyard now. More about these from Desert Tropicals:

The Red Bird of Paradise is a relatively frost sensitive Caesalpinia, and it is generally better to trim it close to ground in winter. This keeps it more compact without seeming to delay it in spring. The canes tend to freeze in all but the warmest areas, and even if they don’t, the new growth in April is somewhat ungainly. For this reason many gardeners cut the bush to the ground at the end of November, and it will grow back green and compact in mid spring.

Image information: Canon EOS Rebel J6i, Action Program, ISO 100, T=1/800 sec., A=F5, Lens EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM. Click on either image to enlarge.

03 Jun 2023 by Arizona Critters Flowers Home & Garden Photography

Tucker’s Second Birthday

Today is Tucker’s second birthday — well, it’s not known what his real birthday is since he was found wandering south of town and nobody claimed him, so the vet who examined him estimated his age to be a year old a year ago today. We adopted him a year ago this coming Saturday, so that anniversary will be this weekend.

After we lost Bay Bay last year, we weren’t expecting to adopt another pet as soon as we found Tucker, but there he was at a Humane Society adoption event at Tractor Supply and it was love at first sight for both us and the little guy.

Tucker is a long-haired chihuahua mix and weighs in at about eleven pounds. He has mostly black fur with a white patch on his right neck, a little blaze on his forehead and a large white “tuxedo shirt” down his chest.

Since we adopted him, Tucker has completely adapted to our routines and he is a wonderful and loving little guy. We look forward to having him around for a long time to come.

So happy birthday little man!

08 Mar 2023 by Critters Family

First 2021 Cherry Red Cactus Flowers

Cherry Red Flowers

Our first of the season Cherry Red Cactus Flowers opened up today. These two are on top of the original “mama” cactus that we separated from her “pups” in October of 2018. This Trichocereus Grandiflorus cactus is just outside our courtyard gate where they are visible (like a hot red beacon) when approaching our place from the east.

Several of the pups are located in the courtyard in pots and one of them is in the ground not far from where the Mama is located. Most, if not all of them have flower buds which means we will be seeing more of these over the summer. Click on the image above to enlarge.

01 Jun 2021 by Arizona Flowers Photography

Spring in the Desert

Beavertail Cactus Flower Pink Hedgehog Cactus Flower

For the past couple of days, some of our native cacti have had flowers open up. The one on the left is a flower on one of our beavertail cacti and the one on the right is on a hedgehog cactus. Both species are native and were growing here when we moved in over ten years ago (that long?).

Below are a couple of male House Finches who are engaged in their spring rituals of trying to attract the attention of female Finches with their spring songs and aerial dances. These are so nice to watch in addition to Cardinals, Doves, Thrashers, Woodpeckers and Phainopeplas doing their things as well.

There are many other species of birds and mammals running about this patch of desert in the springtime. It’s like having our own private zoo.

House Finch Singing House Finch on Rosemary Shrub

Click on any of the images to enlarge.

13 Apr 2021 by Arizona Critters Flowers Home & Garden Photography

Night Blooming Argentine Giant Cactus Flowers

Night Blooming Cactus Flowers

Our Argentine Giant (Echinopsis candicans) offered these two beautiful flowers last evening. This is the second blooming on this cactus this year. Since we purchased this cactus in 2011 and planted it in front of the house, it has reliably given us flowers every year. This year, it is also starting to grow “pups,” which are the three buds seen near the base of the cactus in the image at the left above. This variety of cactus spreads out as it ages with several pups, each eventually producing flowers.

About Argentine Giant from Wikipedia:

Echinopsis candicans has a shrubby growth habit, with individual stems up to 60 cm (24 in) tall. The plant as a whole can be as much as 3 m (10 ft) across. The stems are light green, with a diameter of up to 14 cm (5.5 in) and have 9–11 low ribs. The large white areoles are spaced at 2–3 cm (0.8–1.2 in) and produce brownish yellow spines, the central spines being up to 10 cm (3.9 in) long, the radial spines only up to 4 cm (1.6 in).

The fragrant white flowers open at night. They are large, up to 19 cm (7.5 in) across and 18–23 cm (7.1–9.1 in) long.

Summer is not over by a long shot and there are more desert flowers to come. Stay tuned.

17 Jul 2020 by Arizona Flowers Home & Garden Photography

Red Bird of Paradise

Red Bird of Paradise Flower

Today, the first few of the colorful Red Bird of Paradise flowers opened in our courtyard this morning. These flowers (a.k.a. Pride of Barbados) will be opening until fall. We have three of the Red Bird shrubs in the courtyard, so there should be plenty of color throughout the summer.

More about these shrubs from Texas Superstar:

Pride of Barbados (Caesalpinia pulcherrima) is an evergreen shrub or small tree in frost free climates. The plant is usually tall, growing large even after freezing to the ground the previous winter. The leaves are fern like. Pride–of–Barbados has incredibly showy blossoms of orange and red. The individual flowers are bowl shaped, 2–3 inches across, with five crinkled, unequal red and orange petals, and ten prominent bright red stamens. The striking orange red flowers are an attention grabber!

The flowers get a lot of visits from butterflies, bees, sphinx moths and hummingbirds. We have seen these and more browsing the flowers throughout the summer. The sphinx moths mentioned above usually show up around dusk since they are mostly nocturnal.

31 May 2020 by Arizona Flowers Home & Garden Photography

Summer Seems To Be Here

Our First Saguaro Flowers

In spite of the actual summer start date next month, we have had triple digit weather for two days now and the forecast is for more of the same for the next few days. I just went out on the back patio (4:30PM) and saw the temperature gauge showing 105°F. That’s about a degree cooler than an hour ago. We can deal with it since the air conditioner is keeping the house cool enough.

The flowers in the image above were open this morning on our big saguaro cactus out front by the driveway. These are the first two buds to open on this cactus and there are many more to come. There have been saguaro flowers open in other places in town for a couple of weeks now, but these are our first. We look forward to having a lot more of these in the weeks to come.

In the courtyard, I am expecting our Red Bird of Paradise shrubs to have flowers open any day now, and our Cherry Red cactus flowers coming shortly after those.

Despite the warmer temperatures, we always look forward to our summer flowers. Click on the image to enlarge.

27 May 2020 by Arizona Environment Flowers Home & Garden Photography

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