Having a photo of an iris flower on a post about the recycle center might seem a little weird, but in the case of the county recycle center at the landfill in Palos Verdes, CA, there are pretty flowers all around. In fact, the South Coast Botanic Gardens is located just across the boulevard at the site of another landfill. Since the county maintains the garden, I assume they also provide the landscaping for the Recycle Center, although there are more exotic plant species over there.

Image: Iris flower at the Recycle Center. Click image to enlarge.

As for recycling, we brought 2½ 33 gallon-sized bags of crushed aluminum cans for which they paid us around sixty-five bucks. They also take glass, numbered plastics, newspaper and used motor oil. Even though we aren’t greenbats, we do believe recycling is a good thing, especially if we get some cash for doing it.

Today was shopping day in the Valley (Surprise and Glendale, AZ). We were in the parking lot of a store in Glendale where the mesquite trees were flowering like crazy. We don’t get as many flowers until later in the spring at our higher elevation in Wickenburg. Click on the image to enlarge.

These are three flowers on a prickly pear cactus up the road from our house. New flowers are blooming every day, so expect more pictures of them. I love spring and the desert. Click on the image to enlarge.

At the end of rather inhospitable looking spikes on the canes (stems) of the ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens) planted in front of the house, some flower buds are beginning to appear. Our ocotillo has been dormant, but now we’re hoping that the monsoons will bring it back to actively producing leaves and flowers.

Currently, three of the canes have flower buds. Two of them have bigger buds than this, but are too high for the camera without a step-ladder. I’ll have more pictures when the flowers become mature. Click on the image to enlarge.

Wikipedia says this about the Ocotillo:

For much of the year, the plant appears to be an arrangement of large spiny dead sticks, although closer examination reveals that the stems are partly green. With rainfall the plant quickly becomes lush with small (1-2 inch) ovate leaves, which may remain for weeks or even months.

Individual stems may reach a diameter of 2 inches at the base, and the plant may grow to a height of 30 feet. The plant branches very heavily at its base, but above that the branches are pole-like and only infrequently divide further, and specimens in cultivation may not exhibit any secondary branches. The leaf stalks harden into blunt spines, and new leaves sprout from the base of the spine.

The bright crimson flowers appear especially after rainfall in spring, summer, and occasionally fall. Flowers are clustered indeterminately at the tips of each mature stem. Individual flowers are mildly zygomorphic and are pollinated by hummingbirds and native carpenter bees.

One of the two hedgehog cacti in front of the house has several open flowers with more to come - you can see the cactus with its blooms and a close-up of one flower in the inset. Click on the image to enlarge.

This beautiful cactus flower is blooming on a hedgehog cactus in a neighbor’s yard just down the road from our house. Ours will be blooming soon. We have two hedgehog clusters in front of our house. I just love our colorful spring here in the high Sonoran Desert. Click on the image to enlarge.

Last June, we had our landscaper install several shrubs and trees around the property. One of those is a flowering plum tree. Being a deciduous tree, it lost most of its leaves over the winter. Now that spring has sprung (80° high today), the tree is showing a few little (¾ inch) flowers and some new foliage. Click on the image to enlarge.

We originally bought this bishop’s cap cactus in a three-inch pot here in Arizona back in about 1998. It lived in California and did well there during the years before we retired and brought it back to Arizona. It seemed to like California since it grew into the six-inch pot seen in the image. However, now that it’s here in Arizona, it produces flowers all year long. I took this image today in our courtyard. Click on the image to enlarge.

I went around the yard today, watering all the flowering plants and vegetables as per my usual routine. I noticed that the creosotes have spring flowers, the mesquites are showing green leaves, my Argentine Giant cactus has a couple of little flower buds and both of our hedgehog cacti also have dozens of little flower buds.

Other than the creosote, none of those are in bloom yet. But, this lovely bunch of daffodils that I bought at the supermarket yesterday is going spring-happy. Click on the image to enlarge.

I put the pot with the lithops succulents outside the patio where the morning sun can shine on them. All I can say is that they must like it there. These are the three latest flowers produced this early spring. Click on the image to enlarge.