I was enchanted by the yellow to intense lipstick red blooms against the bright green leaves on this crocosmia. Hummingbirds, butterflies, and bees love them, too!
It’s said that dipping dry crocosmia flowers in water releases a saffron-like aroma. Crocosmia plants grow from corms, which are closely related to bulbs.
The spiritual meaning of this beautiful plant encourages us to playfully engage our emotional strength, power, and will to express ourselves confidently and with enthusiasm.
#FOTD
“If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has the power to move you, if the simple things of Nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive.” — Eleonora Duse
Don’t these clouds look like they should contain a message from the universe?
I love to look up and see blue sky and white clouds. No filter needed, that’s for sure.
This is honestly the first day we’ve had a sunny and warm afternoon. I don’t know where those clouds came from or what they mean, but no rain fell or is anticipated.
Today is the last official day of Spring. The Summer Solstice occurs Wednesday at 7:58 a.m.
“Remember, the entrance door to the sanctuary is inside you.”- Rumi
Poetry. A gentle play on words makes me laugh.
April is almost over and I nearly forgot it was National Poetry Month!
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
Joyce Kilmer
I looked up at this gnarled but lovely twisty eucalyptus tree trunk and ran my fingers down her bark/skin. It was roughly textured but felt solid and safe. Notice all the nooks and crannies to shelter birds and other living creatures.
I am also protected.
For me, this embodies poe-tree.
This is my one of my dry riverbeds. (The other one is in the front garden.)
I proudly carried each and every rock and placed them with loving intention.
It’s not so dry now! Yesterday’s relentless rain had other ideas.
After a few very rainy days, it’s dry for a while until the next storm appears. I see a bit of blue sky as the contrasting backdrop to my Cape Honeysuckle trained to climb over an arbor.
The sweet nectar of its orange-red flowers attracts butterflies and hummingbirds.
The Cape Honeysuckle (Tecoma capensis) produces long, thin elongated fruit capsules that contain numerous seeds easily dispersed by the wind.
It’s easy to propagate from a cutting, so I have lots of them growing in different parts of the garden.
Yup, there’s a lot going on in this photo; a path leading to a pond, the arbor of Cape Honeysuckle and Peppermint-Striped Climbing Roses, and a giant Bird of Paradise.
Everything needs some major work, but it’s a labor of love.
#WordlessWednesday
Last week’s King Tides created the unusual sight of flooded marsh and wetlands.
Here at Agua Hedionda, freshwater creeks drain into a low-lying area meeting the sea. The ocean pushes tides and sands against the land as the creek drains its fresh water and sediment into the sea. This mix of fresh and salt water forms a brackish environment. The salinity varies with the seasonal influence of rain and storms.
Sometimes the tide is so low, we can walk all the way around to the south side where there’s a sweet little beach, but not that day!
With all of this recent rain we’ve had (and more on the way), freshwater basins appear and fill the normally dry land surrounding the lagoon.
After all these years, this is still one of my favorite views. We see the lagoon, freeway, train tracks, and Pacific ocean.
We had rain, hardly enough to do anything but wet the street and sidewalk. After, the sky was painted with spectacular clouds and bonus moon sightings!
At the lagoon.
After the lagoon, walking up the hill, homeward bound.
#WordlessWednesday
I’m not sure why, because there’s not any water in my pond right now, but the garden was full of little dragonflies today, which made me extraordinarily happy.
The temps are up again, nearly ninety degrees, so hot it dried the sheets on the line in about half an hour, but the humidity is low with these Santa Ana winds. It’s way more pleasant than the heat/humidity wave we experienced a few weeks ago, and the nights are blissfully cool.
“I heard the wind whisper and the earth sigh, it made my soul smile as I walked by.”
Michelle Schaper
Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud 