Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto
We’ve had such nice weather for most of February.
It warmed up to above seasonal temperatures for several days making it seem very spring like and all the snow that we had melted away. Unfortunately that’s over now … it’s snowing like crazy this weekend so all we’ll see for a while is white when we look outdoors.
I think for today I’ll remember how nice and warm summer is by enjoying this lovely Cactus Dahlia:
How’s the weather in your area?
Some how this year I’ve managed to have flowers almost continuously, by this I mean I’ve had flowers either in my yard or in my house since last spring!
At the moment my kitchen is the bloom factory. If you’re a neat freak you wouldn’t like the look of our kitchen table as it has at least 10 plants on it, but at least that only happens in the winter. During the warmer months most of my plants go outdoors or onto our enclosed porches.
We have two types of Orchids blooming (another just finished it’s flowering), a small hibiscus that puts out one or two flowers every few days, one Amaryllis that just finished blooming and when my husband was in the hospital the nurses that cared for him gave him an African Violet plant – in bloom.
Our Thanksgiving and Christmas Cactus’ keep putting out the occasional bloom as well … so as I said we’ve had flowers surrounding us for a year now! That’s a first.
The Orchids are just lovely right now.
This purple one is one of my favorites. I love it’s intricate pattern. I almost looks like a butterfly to me.
These white Orchids are new. I bought the plant in the first week of January and it’s still blooming!
I love how the flowers all line up in a delicate row like that.
Oh … here’s a shot of my messy plant covered table … the plant with the weird spider like things is an orchid that’s producing babies. Those spider leg like things are air roots and the green leaves are new plants growing high above the base of the main plant.
Do you have any flowers blooming in your house right now? Even some store bought Valentine flowers?
Today I’m thinking about spring. Only two more months and we’ll be starting to come out of this frigid, icy, snowing winter!
I know I’ve posted this photo or a similar one in the past, but I love the light bright green of the hosta leaves and the purple of the grape hyacinth (muscari) just go so well together. Plus this photo makes me think of spring, spring flowers, the scent of spring, first cut grass and more.
Are you as happy as I am that Winter is almost half over?
If you occasionally visit some of my other blogs – particularly my gardening blog or my photo blog, you’ve probably realized that I love plants, flowers, gardening and of course photography.
I’ve always been interested in all stages of plant growth, from that first little sprout that comes up after you’ve planted a seed, to the first leaf, first flower buds, flowers in bloom and even dying flowers and the seed heads that develop once the flower has died down.
One of my flowers that produces lovely seed heads in the Maltese Cross. Now, since I don’t have any winter pictures (ie frozen flowers, snow covered garden etc) because I’ve been hiding from the cold and snow, I decided to go back one season and show you what the Maltese cross seed head looks like in Autumn or late summer when the flowers die down.
Aren’t they lovely? To me, even dead flowers can be beautiful. In this photograph it almost looks like I’ve caught the reflection of the one seed head, but that seed head in the background is actually a different one no matter how much it looks like I’ve done some kind of mirror technique.
Do you also enjoy the look of dried flowers, seed heads, trees without leaves and other similar sights?
I look outside and everything is a blanket of white. While it’s nice to see a fresh blanket of snow on the ground (I mean rather than old slushy dirty snow), to be frank I’m getting darn tired of it.
I don’t hate winter. Heck, I live in Canada – born and raised in Ottawa (tied for coldest capital with Moscow) so there’s no way I’d survive here if I hated winter. However, here in Toronto the snow usually doesn’t stay.
It snows, lasts for a day or two and then melts away, or that’s the way it’s been for most of the time I’ve lived here … however the last two years have been snow, snow and more snow and to top it off it rained most of last summer. Hopefully you can’t blame me for being more than a little tired of dull grey skies and all the white stuff.
What I need is some color and I thought that some of my readers who are going through the same thing I am (snow, snow and more snow) might also appreciate a cheery flower.
So here’s a lovely daylily that I grow in my garden. it’s called Bonanza. I think the name suits this vibrant yellow flower – don’t you?
Now how’s that for some color?
BTW if you want to see another summer flower I have a great picture of my Clematis growing over a birdhouse on my gardening blog.