Pink. Just pink.

Don’t try and tell me any other words for it – these are all strictly pink.

It’s overcast and rainy today, only not rainy in any sense that you’re imagining which involves water falling from the sky, but rather this delicate, namby-pamby kind of thing where the water trickles between the air molecules rather than pushing them out of the way, proving that you really would get wetter if you ran rather than walked, except “wet” is solely in comparison to “bone dry.” Which is funny, because the rain gods of North Carolina have a tendency to smite the unbelievers with deluges so fierce that you’re wondering if the roof will hold up under the weight of the water before it makes it to the edges. But anyway, this is not that, and I was wandering around looking for targets of opportunity before even this pissant excuse for the weather cycle got fully started. What I got was pink.

pinkish flowers on oak-leaf hydrangea Hydrangea quercifolia with semi-hidden element
The oak-leaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) this year have gone notably pinkish from their typical off-white, which I believe indicates that the soil is a bit alkaline, or at least it does for some species anyway. This particular cluster of blossoms was chosen in part for their color, and in part for their guardian – had you spotted it initially? I know I was scoping out the plant for a few moments before I saw the watcher.

cropped version of same frame with Carolina anole Anolis carolinensis atop oak-leaf hydrangea Hydrangea quercifolia blossoms
From my angle, this guy hadn’t wrecked his camouflage, though from above it was a lot more conspicuous, but since this was not quite at eye-level, only professional basketballs players would get that perspective and they tend not to prefer anoles in their diets, so this guy knew what it was doing.

Pink Panther foxglove Digitalis x 'Pink Panther' blossoms being visited by carpenter bee
The Girlfriend had purchased this ‘Pink Panther’ variety of foxglove (Digitalis x ‘Pink Panther’) because of the exuberant attention it was receiving from the carpenter bees, and they didn’t take long to discover it in its new location – and then again, once I moved it to the back yard to keep it from the attention of the local deer. Soon after I moved it, actually, I was standing almost where it had been and had a confused carpenter bee circle the vicinity, obviously questioning its recall. A little brighter light would have been better, but this is what we have today, so we’ll cope.

Meanwhile, the two potted hydrangeas are also showing brilliant ‘just pink’ this year.

closeup of unknown variety of hydrangea blossoms showing blue flowerettes in center
I’m not exactly sure of the variety of this one, and considering our experience with poor labeling I wouldn’t trust the info even if they were labeled, but the blue central flowers among the brilliant just pink petals stands out on close inspection. Another one nearby has paler just pink petals with a white central flower, however, so perhaps you can discern the varieties from that. Me, I just photographs ’em. You can see that a random rain drizzle had found one of the blossoms by that time, with enough velocity to splash even.

That’s all for now, though some sorting finds will be along shortly.

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