Home & Garden

Every couple of years, our Bromeliad on the front porch will produce one of these brilliant pink flowers. Eventually, there will also be purple pods embedded in the flower, which adds more color. These come and go quickly, but not as fast as the cactus blossoms. There is a second bloom coming up in another part of the plant, so we will have two this summer. Damsel took this picture a couple of days ago.

A couple of years ago, I took this 3D picture of a previous bloom from the same plant (you need red/blue or red/cyan 3D glasses to view).

Did you ever wonder what would happen if they didn’t pick artichokes for the produce department? That question was answered for us last weekend when we visited the Botanic Garden. If they are left on the stalks they produce these giant purple flowers.

Whirligig is the nickname given to this Trailing African Daisy (osteospermum fruticosum). I snapped this picture last week at the Botanic Garden.

The Whirligig is a member of the Aster family, closely related to other mums and daisies with a single-tier of petals. It propagates well from cuttings and does well in the Southwestern United States. According to the Desert Tropicals website (Phoenix, AZ) this flower suffers in hotter climates like Phoenix, but is hardy when it comes to tolerating frost.