Category Archives: Flowers

For me there’s a very noticable trend toward shorter, simpler daily posts, sometimes (like today and Monday and Sunday) just a single picture with a quick comment or two.

Yes, things are really, really busy. Yes, the days are really, really long.

Those are both good things, at least as long as it’s not a daily thing every day until the heat death of the universe.

Meanwhile, the color variations within each of these tiny flowers in the shade is just amazing. I would love to see these flowers in ultraviolet light. I’ve seen pictures of others with similar patters. I’ll be these look like a freakin’ bullseye even more vividly than they do in visible light!!

I went out the other day just about sunset and noticed all of the tiny little flowers in the front yard.

Then the flowers were all open at mid-day, bright yellow. But now it was just before sunset.

All of them were closed up, like little yellow pods, saving their warmth and moisture against a cold, dry, windy night.

Isn’t this a cool planet?

If you go wandering around on the far side of the house where you rarely go unless you’re putting up or taking down Christmas lights…

…you might be pleasantly surprised.

What’s on the far side of your house?

Big chunks of the lemon tree, probably 2/3 or more, are dead as can be and probably need to be pruned – but we’re renting and we have orders to not touch anything like that. The gardeners will do if, if and when they get instructions to do so. (Reason #3813 why I would really, REALLY like to own my home again instead of renting.)

But not all of it’s dead.

And the leaves and flower buds that are emerging are amazing.

In early March I posted pictures of a weird red plant growing in the back yard, some extremely green moss growing near it (it was St. Patrick’s Day, soooo predictable!), and then some new spring growth on a whole bunch of plants, where the new growth is a lighter shade of green than the existing leaves.

Now the new ivy leaves are growing like crazy along the fence between our house and the neighbors.

The difference in shades of green is very stark on this ivy, the older leaves being a dark green and the new leaves being much lighter and more yellow.

In a month it will all be the same. But for now it’s very pretty, varied, and it makes a great hiding place and home for hummingbirds and lizards.

Yesterday I gave you a bunch of VERY green moss for St. Patrick’s day. While I was out there I noticed the new, spring growth on some of the other garden plants are a much different shade of green than the older leaves. I’ve got a suspicion that I’ve noticed this in previous years and posted about it then, but it’s late, I’m marginally brain dead tonight, and I’m just going to go with it.

Let’s all hope for clear skies and no rain tomorrow in SoCal, particularly in the Point Mugu area of Ventura County. (If you know, you know!)

I don’t know what to call this – I’m out of clever, it’s been a weekend, my brain is fried. I’m in Monday-adjacent mode.

Around 17:00 this afternoon (PDT – have I mentioned how much I despise Daylight Savings Time? Hint: I have.) I was out in the front, looking for F-18 fighters. I found them, they came right over our house, loud and high, probably at 20,000 feet or more, after they buzzed the Oscars opening down in Hollywood.

I noticed that big chunks of the lawn has been taken over by these little yellow flowers. Remember them? There was one right next to the driveway and my car’s tires all last summer through the worst of the drought.

Now with all of the rain, there’s a little grass coming back, but tons of these little guys.

There was one solitary bee out there, going from flower to flower to flower, just staying a few seconds at each. I watched for a while to make sure it didn’t miss any. It didn’t, except for one. But after it got to the edge of the field, it hovered for a second, then came back to find it. It hit the one it had missed, then flew off toward a neighbor’s yard.

Go get ’em, Mister Bee!