Home & Garden

When we brought this beautiful yellow ranunculus home from the garden shop a couple weekends ago, it was just a bud. Since that time it has been opening up and looked very lovely today when I was taking photos in the garden.

This is a Split Rock succulent. It’s related to the lithops (living stones) succulents – both are native to South Africa. Pleiospilos nelii is the scientific name for this interesting little plant. Living stones mimic their natural surroundings to an astounding degree – they evolved to resemble smooth rocks – presumably to avoid detection by herbivorous predators.

Because of their compactness, drought tolerance and low maintenance, living stones have become very popular as houseplants and garden accents. The split rock, shown in the photo to the right, lives on the patio and is currently producing its annual flowers. Click on the thumbnail photo to see the full-sized image.

Below is a close-up photo of the beautiful flower as it opens to gather sunlight. Click the image for the 1024×717 pixel close-up.

This beautiful sugarbird daffodil just opened a couple of days ago. I love all of our daffodils, but this one seems special, since it is the only one that has white petals and an orange cup.

We went to the local home and garden emporium after shooting today. We had a list of things we needed and, of course, I had to get some things we don’t need. One of those was this Red Spike Iceplant. I like to get a six-pack of these and put them in planters around the patio for color. You can’t argue that this one isn’t colorful!

When the flower stem started upwards from the bulb on this Amaryllis, it didn’t rise straight up like I’m used to seeing with these. Wanting to prop it upright, I put an orchid stick in the pot and got some bag ties to hold the stem to the stick. As soon as I stood it up, though, the stem snapped – almost in two! See the inset for the damaged stem.

Despite the damage and supported by only a thin part of the stem, these beautiful flowers emerged with a couple more on the way. Amazing.

The first of my daffodils are starting to come out. I took this photo of this very pretty yellow one with the sun lighting it up from behind. We just stayed home today and worked in the garden and yard. It was overdue since a couple of wet weekends and a gun show kept us from the chores.