Actually, it’s nice not to have all of the color coming up in May. A few of these I grabbed in passing, and a few I specifically set out the other morning to immortalize.
We’ll start with the ginger lily (Hedychium coronarium,) which we obtained years ago in an effort to make more of a habitat for the Carolina anoles, something that now sounds amusing when I say it.
Back then, which was at the old place, we didn’t have too many anoles, but they gained a foothold much faster than the ginger lilies did. When we moved, I was planning to leave the lilies behind, but The Girlfriend transplanted them into pots one weekend and so we brought them along, and this marks the first that they’ve actually bloomed. Are the anoles taking notice of this created habitat? Not sure – they’re too busy running around the entire rest of the property to notice, it seems…
I think I’ve only photographed these once or twice before, and seen them just a few more times than that. This is an Asiatic dayflower (Commelina communis,) which blooms briefly in a very narrow time frame, not just of the day, but of the year as well, and I have a couple of stray plants right by the outside door to Deep 13 (otherwise known as Walkabout Studios or even The Shithole, but that’s just because of the clutter.) I made an earlier attempt to get this, but didn’t like the composition, and by the time I re-embarked on the arduous trek back to it, it had closed up for the day. So this was obtained the next morning – luckily it was still blooming. Cool-looking, quite small flowers, roughly 30mm across the widest point.
On a whim late this spring, I distributed the seeds of several wildflower species in different locations, and the morning glories (genus Convolvulaceae) are the only ones that appear to have germinated, which is actually ahead of the game for me and wildflowers. One batch has enthusiastically taken to the grape arbor.
They all seem to be the same color, which is amusing because, when I purchase the seeds, I always make sure I have a blue variety in there. Naturally, the best display is in the morning, which is amazing that they adapted to their name in that way. A closer look:
By the time the sun reaches this spot, the blossoms are already starting to close up for the heat of the day, so we virtually always have these in muted light. The patch down near the Asiatic dayflowers is another matter.
Others on the same plant were already curling up, but this one was shaded by its own leaves and thus wasn’t vampiring away just yet, but to get this, I had to lie flat on the ground to shoot upwards, making sure to get a bit of sky in there. I like the way the light worked throughout, with a bit of a glow right in the center of the blossom.
Back to blue? Back to blue.
We’ve seen these in the hummingbird post, but this is a closer look before the overnight mist/dew had fully cleared, done with the macro flash rig instead of direct sunlight. This is a slight tweak to bring the blues back to the proper hue, but less editing was necessary than with the lobelias.
And the purples, while I’m at it.
This also had a slight tweak in color, but to know if it’s truly a close match, I’d have to load the images onto my smutphone to go out and see them side-by-side. But I captured the mix of dew and pollen on the petals anyway.
Now we have an olllddd one, dating from twelve years ago, that I thought I’d featured then but cannot confirm. So, here’s the deal: I attempt to feature the proper scientific names of just about every species I display here, and many I know I’ve featured before – but this doesn’t mean I can find them easily. The tags for the common and scientific names aren’t linked, if I can even remember the common name or a portion thereof. So while trying to recall the Asiatic dayflower, I was searching online under what I thought was a common name, and turned up many other things because I was remembering wrong. One of those, however, I recognized as having been photographed before and never identified. That was these:
Only thing was, once I dug out this image, I discovered that I had not run across the proper identification, since what I found was subtly different. So I did another couple of searches, eventually landing on the correct one: this is a Clerodendrum trichotomum, commonly known as a harlequin glorybower, glorytree or, for reasons lost to all rational consideration, a peanut butter tree – I’m sticking with the first. I got this image in passing in a park well away from here, and should have done a better job since I haven’t seen them since – they’re an ornamental from south Asia.
Back to blue? Back to blue.
The girlfriend got a couple of blue hydrangea bushes this spring to get established, and this one appears to be settling in quite well. Of course, the color of hydrangea blossoms is dependent on the pH of the soil, so this is at least leaning in the right direction, but she’s hoping to have them even more blue. This variety is an ‘Endless Summer’ hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla ‘Bailmer’,) and still pretty small as yet.
And finally,
It was seven years ago today that we brought Monsta home, otherwise known as Beebeek, Beekers, Squeakers – anything but her christened name of, ‘Taz;‘ pet-owners know what we’re talking about. Here she is about an hour ago, trying to be cute to convince us that her name is undeserved – don’t buy it. She’s gotten to be a little pudge, since she’s too food-oriented and if she hears either of the others eating, she thinks she’s missing out. Later on in the year, we’ll revisit the anniversary of the other Boogs…