I realize that at first glance this is quite a dull looking patch of flowers BUT they're the Central American version of butterfly weed, and we actually have several patches of them for the butterflies (and humming birds, too) -

If you take a close look, you can see this beauty:

Or this one:

We've seen many other species of butterfly sipping nectar plus 5 species of humming birds, unfortunately, as yet, have not been successful at getting a photo of the humming birds....

The garden is thriving

Welcome - come take a virtual walk with me down a garden path -


This patch of bird beak heliconias has been blooming for months - if you look close, you can see the eaves of the garage behind them... there's a large parking area there, too, but that's impossible to see.

We have many types of heliconias in the garden - ginger and bananas are in the botanical family, as well as this bizarre flower:

Here's another photo of it, which (hopefully) will give you a better idea of it's size - and how close to the ground it grows... that white thing is a 1/2 inch tube ... while the flowers are close to the ground, the plant is taller than I am:

This is a corner Maria, our gardener, and I are currently working on:

And this is the path we're walking:


This plant 'volunteered itself' ... in other words, no one has any idea where it came from, but it's certainly interesting - this is the back view of it -

And this is the front of the flower ... I've never seen anything exactly like it, before.

Actually, I'm not surprised when plants move into the garden - plants grow EVERYWHERE on the edge of the rainforest - that odd lump on the right is a rock:

This is the back of that rock and that plant on the left is an orchid - actually several of our rocks are covered with the small, native orchids.

Even the tree trunks are covered with other plants - and yes, that's yet another orchid covered rock next to it:

And here is another rocky view - that odd football looking thing in the upper right hand corner is a banana blossom (and yes, it actually is about the size of a football - the rock is about the size of a VW Beetle.

So, that's it for today's garden tour ... it's wet season and I need to keep the camera dry.

Seeing blue....

Our friend, Francia will be opening a new school on March 8th, so we're trying to help her get things ready - my project has been to refurbish some old desks - they arrived looking like this:

And, after cleaning an painting, they looked like this

They started accumulating -

so once they got dry enough, Francia started transporting them back to the school... BTW, the finished project looked like this:

Going Bananas ....

The two photos above are of an emerging, and emerged flower of an edible type of banana --- possibly these don't look too impressive, but the plum-type bud is bigger than a 5# bag of sugar... quite impressive.

The following banana flower doesn't produce edible fruit (at least not according to MY taste-buds), but it's pretty; hummingbirds love the flowers and it's fast growing - which is fine for now, but could eventually prove to be a problem:

& now for my personal favorite - this plant is +/- 6 feet tall and the blossom is about the size of my laptop - purely decorative, but IMHO, this 'torch banana' is pure food for the soul!

The reason we originally chose this property -

Was the creek that borders the East side of our lot - this is the upstream view:

These rocks relocated to our yard during a major flood a little over a year ago -

Didn't realize how fast the water moves on a normal day, did you?

And on the creek goes, rushing down the mountain to meet the river and then on to the Pacific...

In the garden...

I must admit that one thing I love to do is find a forlorn plant in a drainage ditch, snatch it and give it a nice home in my garden ... can find some amazing things in those ditches - last year, I found what I thought would be a 'red bird beak' and brought it home ... leaves were correct, but the flowers are saying that they're some sort of cousin:

& you can see that the flowers are just starting to open:

I couldn't be more pleased with that find.

Now, the following plant volunteered - ie, planted itself:

I mean, seriously, no one thinks I shinnied up that tree to plant that rascal, so you?!

AND (drum roll, please) one of that volunteer's cousins - a pineapple top I actually did plant - is getting ready to provide a pineapple!

It's turning into an inhospitable rascal, though ... captured a dead leaf from a nearby tree weeks ago and no one has had the nerve to argue with those sword-like leaves.

Lastly, six days ago, when the dead leaves were getting whacked off our bananas (they do look quite shabby if one doesn't do this) a resident was discovered .... thus, one dead leaf is still there, so this tree frog will feel safe...

Actually, that little fella (or gal) sparked quite a spat of e-mails, with our grandson wanting it for a pet (I suspect it would be too loud for a deaf person to keep in the house!) and our grand daughter wanting to grow a banana tree in North Carolina .... terribly disappointing to learn that's not a viable option.

Week in review:

Bug of the week ... a sort of leaf-looking praying mantis, which Paul found sunbathing on a rock -

Now, compare him to Paul's thumb -

Canyon Rose is the latest painting - sort or a combination of an opening rose bud and colors from a sandstone canyon -

& the flower of the week was discovered at Boca Chica ... it may inspire a future painting: