The vase on the sofa table has these beautiful Asian lilies this weekend. I borrowed a couple of them and took them over to Mom at the ranch to brighten up her room. Click on the image to enlarge.
Flowers
Another Beautiful Cereus Flower
We bought this cereus a couple of years ago at the garden shop. When we got it, it needed re-potting, so I put it in this three gallon container. It was getting little lobes on the sides and needed the room. The bad thing is that I lost the name of this variety of cereus (I think it’s a cereus).
Well, in timing with the monsoons and the other cereus “queen” flowers, one of the flowers on this cactus opened early this morning. It’s very beautiful and it has a light fragrance – almost lemony.
The image above is one of five in a slideshow. Click the image to advance to the next frame.
Queen of the Night Opening
The first of the three “Queen of the Night” flowers opened tonight. We went up the little hill where the cereus cactus is growing and took several images of this beautiful flower. There are two more buds that should open in the next day or so. Looks great, smells great! Click on the image to enlarge.
UPDATE (7/20/13): The other two cereus flowers opened last night. I captured this image of the two open flowers and the remnants of the frower from the night before. Click on the image to enlarge.
Cereus Flower Update
After a couple of days having monsoon weather and showers, I noticed that one of my little cacti had developed a couple of flower stalks. That made me think of the “Queen of the night” cereus cactus on the hill above the little wash. Upon inspecting the cactus today, we noticed a great deal of growth on the flower stalks. A while back, we feared that they might have gone dormant, but thought that the monsoons might have something to offer for flower growth. Now, it looks like we might have been right. We will be checking after dark every night from now until they open up.
Image above: Composite view of the three flower stalks today. Click on the image to enlarge.
Bishop Flowers Keep on Coming
It was another beautiful summer day in the desert today! I went out to the courtyard this morning and noticed that the Bishop’s Cap Barrel cactus was literally crowned with uncountable flower buds. This afternoon, I took this photo of them mostly open. I think this cactus likes its native Arizona. Click on the image to enlarge.
Sunflowers
We shopped a day earlier than usual today because of the holiday falling on our normal Thursday shopping day. I was looking for some red-white-blue floral displays and was a little disappointed that they had none. I settled for these nice sunflowers to serve as a colorful and festive centerpiece for our Fourth of July celebrations this long weekend. Click on the image to enlarge.
First Day Of Summer
Welcome to summer! I’m posting this beautiful Gerbera daisy because it reminds me of the sun, which will be up for almost fourteen and a half hours today. Click on the image to enlarge.