I realize I have several flowers that I refer to as my favorite flower. When I reflected on that fact today, it occurred to me that my favorite flower changes with the season. In the spring, my favorite flowers are the blooms on my magnolia tree; in summer, I am intrigued by the echinacea flowers; and at this time of the year, my favorite flowers are the ones on my aster shrub. I think I have taken more beautiful shots of those flowers than any other.
This is the photo I just took.
I love it.
We’ve planted more than a dozen oceanspray shrubs in our forest restoration site. Some of them may have had a few blossoms last year, but many more have them this year.
This week I saw oceanspray shrubs in other Seattle parks that were 13 feet high and nearly as wide. It will be interesting to see how big the ones in our restored forest grow.
One of my favorite Greenbelt flowers is the bleeding heart flower; they are so small and delicate. On June 9, I took what I think is an amazing photo of one of those plants.
To me it looks like a bleeding heart flower birthing a seed pod. I look forward to learning how and when to harvest and spread the seeds. Even more, I look forward to seeing a lot more bleeding heart flowers in our Greenbelt restoration site next spring!
This spring has been very exciting for me. We planted our first trees, shrubs and ground covers in November of 2017. This year most of those plants had a tremendous growth spurt. Several species bloomed for the first time. One of those was this bald hip rose shrub.
The beginning of the path between the Mt. Baker light rail station and the Hanford Stairs is lined with bald hip rose shrubs.
One day in late May, this is what I saw as I was walking home from the Mt. Baker station.
I realized I was getting a glimpse of what our Greenbelt site is going to look like in a few years. WOW!
I spend so much time working in the Greenbelt that I often don’t notice what is going on in my own yard.
Two days ago, I realized my camellia shrub had started blooming, and the flowers were beautiful.
When I knelt down to take a photo of a bloom towards the bottom of the bush…
… I saw that there was something partially buried in the ground. I pulled it out.
Where did the shoe come from and when? It certainly didn’t come from my house. I looked around and noticed that the bottom part of my neighbor’s rotten garage was in front of me.
An animal must have pulled the shoe from there at some point. Finding something so unusual in my yard felt like an added bonus. I now had a mini adventure to report on, in addition to sharing the beautiful flowers.
A few months ago, Cee expanded her Flower of the Day Challenge to include leaves. I am going to take advantage of that change today!
To read previous posts in this series click here.
A few days ago, I stopped by a Naga Linga tree that is located near the student dining area in Amritapuri. I had taken photos of the same tree in August 2017 and September 2018. I snapped the photos below on January 3, 2019. There are more blooms on the tree this time, but not that many more. I wonder what month all of the buds are open. I sure would like to see it then.
I noticed that some, but not all, of the blooms were a brighter color than in previous years.
To learn more about Naga Linga trees click here.
Cee’s Flower of the Day Challenge
To read previous posts in this series click here.
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