Huntington Library - February and April 2009

We were able to get away to the Huntington Library's botanical gardens twice so far this year, in February and April. As you certainly would expect, there were many more flowers in bloom in April, especially in the Cactus Garden. First, flowering plants related to the cereus, though of course these will all be day bloomers. The cactus greenhouse is open on Saturdays, and among the specimens in bloom during the visit was this beautiful cereus labeled "Epicactus 'Mystic Mood'":




Two more views of this cereus...







Echinopsis obrepanda, also from the greenhouse. (Don't these Latin names sound like vile diseases?)




I didn't get the name of this one, but I think it's the same plant I had that perished in the January, 2007, freeze:






Straining for the sun,,,




One stands above the crowd...




Cyclops is a little bit spooky, especially when it catches the sun...




Finally, from February, a butterfly alights on a peach tree in the Chinese Garden that was in bloom at the time...

Sequoia National Park - March 2009

In March, we went up to Wuksachi Lodge in Sequoia National Park. A foot and a half of snow fell after our arrival, making for some nice pictures and an interesting drive down the mountain. Before the snow fell, the clouds rolled in...




After the snow, on the drive back down...




Farther down the mountain, close to the snowline, where the snow on the road had already melted...




Looking back at the snow-covered mountains...

Death Valley - December 2008

It's been months since I updated this blog -- been too bloody busy, unfortunately -- so here's a spate of posts. These are pictures I took at Death Valley National Park late last December. First, the charcoal kilns above Wildrose are always worth a visit...




Sunrise, after a little help from Photoshop...




Two views of sand dunes, that same sunrise...







Death Valley itself, seen from Badwater Basin. A large, framed version of this one now adorns the kitchen wall...




From near Artists' Palette...




Mountains near sunset...




What constellation are you seeing in this photograph of the night sky? Click here for some assistance.

Beijing, China - October 2008

I recently spent a week in Beijing, China, but was far too busy to take many pictures. But, here are a few shots. The first three were taken at the Summer Palace:










The "Bird's Nest" as seen from a bus:




On television, the Water Cube appeared a much deeper blue than seen here, perhaps because I usually saw the building at night and perhaps illuminated from inside:




What did they do with Floor 0?

Alaska - September 2008

We took our first-ever trip, a land/sea tour, to Alaska early last September. Here are a few pictures from that excursion. The first shows our son, Ty, deep in thought on the train to Denali National Park:




More of the notoriously fickle Mt. McKinley than most visitors ever manage to see:




Some rushes growing on the swampy tundra:




Elsewhere, fall colors were much in evidence:




My first double rainbow made its appearance in Denali!




An arctic bird glides over an ice-speckled Glacier Bay:




Some of Alaska's cloud-enshrouded mountain peaks:




Ketchikan, the place where we were guaranteed to see rain, proved the only fully sunny place of the trip:




Cue the theme from Jaws:




"You talkin' to me?":

The new cereus blooms - 6/30/08

The cereus acquired last summer has produced its first bloom. The second of the two pictures below was taken after sunrise, with natural light. The aqua backdrop is a pool cover.





The plant is growing some new leaves, but there are no additional buds at this time.

Another Huntington visit - 27 June 2008

We made another of our (almost yearly) pilgrimages to Pasadena's Huntington Library gardens yesterday. There were several species of cereus in bloom, and I took plenty of pictures, only to find the SanDisk CompactFlash card on which they should have been stored essentially empty. Not a single picture. This was a brand new card, which I tested prior to use. The other new card, purchased at the same time, functioned properly, as did the older cards (all SanDisk) I pressed into service. So, as a result, no cereus pictures from the Desert Garden this time around. I wish I knew what happened...

So, our tour today starts with the Lily Pond, which was the main center of attention. The pond was quite still, allowing for some nice reflections off its surface...






We don't recall seeing these huge lotus flowers in our previous visits - at least they were not in bloom...






Also at the Lily Pond, an insect alights on a lotus flower bud...




...while in the water, a turtle swam placidly...

Mojave pictures from April, 2008

Been too busy to get some poppy pictures I took last April in the Mojave Desert, probably around the peak of the wildflower season there. The display there was nowhere near as good as it has been in the past, but still a good show. The first picture shows a picture I took along a dirt road well north of Hwy 134, looking north.




More poppy fields. In the second picture below, dry white bushes can be seen surrounded by poppies:







Those bushes become tunbleweeds when uprooted. This seems to be as far as those weeds actually get...




Poppies grow along a dry creek that wound its way through a desert farm:




Finally, a poppy rears its head above the crowd..




[27 June 2008: I've been using Apple's .Mac service to host this blog's pictures, but its frequent recent outages have prompted me to move them elsewhere.]

A new bud!

Since being brought outdoors recently, the new cereus plant acquired last summer has acquired a new bud. There's just one, and it has appeared on a leaf that has not fared very well (note the damage in the pictures below), but so far, so good. I have moved the plant to a place with plenty of light but no direct sun, to see if that helps.




Meanwhile, the original cereus continues to grow. The picture below shows how far it has come as of today. In the foreground, the remains from its first life can again be seen.

The old cereus returns...

As a friend's cereus is already blooming, I thought it time to revisit our own plant, a replacement for the one done in by the January, 2007, freeze. The cutting obtained that summer had been growing indoors, but was transplanted to an outdoor location just last week. It is still growing well, though it still seems unlikely there will be any blooms from it this year.




But the real story here may be the original cereus wasn't completely dead after all! Look carefully in the photo below and see that new growth has very recently appeared near one of the plant's old, ostensibly dead leaves. After we decided the plant was a goner during the summer of 2007, this pot was largely neglected, and rarely watered. Maybe a little neglect is sometimes a good thing? :-)

Poppies in Old Agoura - April, 2008

Since last September, we've had 16.8" of rain at our house northwest of Los Angeles, which probably represents a below-normal total. However, 12.2" of that fell in a single month, January, which is probably the optimal time for encouraging spring flowers. The hills in the Conejo Valley are lush and green, dotted with yellow mustard and orange poppies. However, every silver lining has a cloud, and what grows now might burn later.

We'll worry about that later. For now, here are some pictures of the California golden poppy, our state flower, taken at Old Agoura Park in Agoura Hills.






The poppy's petals are somewhat translucent, giving a nice shadow effect where petals overlap when seen through strong light.






The flowers shown above are actually orange, the most common color of this flower; the petals can look somewhat yellowish depending on the light. That said, the next two photos show that true yellow and multicolor versions also exist...






...and they even come in pure white! I don't recall seeing this in earlier years,,,




Finally, here's another extreme close-up of the common orange variety: