The Birds and the Bees
Apropos to the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday here in the USA, the back garden has been in abundant bloom, and there’s beauty all around to inspire gratitude. These pictures are from the past couple weeks, when we were having some unusually warm November weather. This female Anna’s Hummingbird stopped long enough at the feeder for a picture. On the right, a honeybee makes a visit to our lemon tree.
On the left, one of the last Plumeria flowers from my potted tree still has its wonderful scent. It’s produced continuous flowers since the spring, but now the plant is starting to go into winter hibernation. On the right, these orange Epidendrum flowers just opened in October.
This enormous White Bird of Paradise (scientific name Strelitzia nicolai) is in the banana family, and native to South Africa. What was once a 4 feet tall (1.2 m) houseplant in a pot grew into a 2-story tree in the ground, producing massive new blue and white flowers every few months. Those leaves grow as large as 7 feet (2.1 m.)
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November 26th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Thanks for the great pics! That picture of the honeybee is amazing-such great detail. It’s interesting to see how much really tropcial stuff you can grow in San Francisco.
January 10th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
That is a wonderful hummingbird picture and you have so much wondreful flowers in your garden!!!
April 14th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
glad to see there are some healthy honeybees around!