Colors of Summer

The flowers have been exceptional this year. I guess they like cool, wet springs better than hot, dry ones:Now that the temps are heating up they'll start to fade away. But what a show!

Garden Flowers

I so wish this was my garden at home:But it's not. It's the garden where I work. People are paid to plant and weed and water this garden- unlike the forlorn flower garden at home. Does anyone know what any of the purple flowers are? The yellow ones in the first picture are California poppies and the pink flowers in the third picture are some other kind of poppy. But I can't name a one of the three purple flowers pictured.

Poppies

Summer is not my favorite season. Too much heat makes me tired and grumpy. There are some perks though:

Another Happy Friday

Thanks to Jamie Ridler I now pay attention to my happiness quotient during the week. I still get grumpy about things but I notice more often than not that my days are mostly good and things are always shifting in different and interesting ways. Learning to roll with the mutable quality of life makes living a lot less stressful. This is easier said than done, but the Happy Book project has worked its subtle ways on me. I pay more attention to the positive and let the negative roll on by. Usually. Sometimes. Well, I try to.

Ah well, happiness is not about perfection. Meanwhile the flowers keep blooming...

This beauty is known by the suggestive name of Pussy Ears (Calochortus tolmiei).This is the flower of the Pitcher Plant/ Darlingtonia (Darlingtonia californica)
And this last little beauty is a Trillium (in the Lily order - I couldn't find the Latin name because there are too many common names! I'm not sure which is which.)
All the flower photos were taken by the ever talented Tree Geek, master of the macro lens and bondo bears and who causes Harley bikes (not bikers!) to quake at the very sight of him.

Happy Flower Friday

Slideshow made with Smilebox

I wanted to show off some of the great early spring flowers that are popping up southern Oregon.

The single white flower that appears twice- that's a Fawn Lily.

The other white flowers with the purple flowers in the background are white Shooting Stars Dodecatheon pulchellum (photo by TreeGeek). The purple ones are....wait for it...purple Shooting Stars! Betcha didn't know that.

The yellow flowers are Oregon Grape. I had no idea that Oregon Grape was so odiferous, in a pleasant way. I kept catching whiff of it while I was taking photos. There were an astounding number of bees and wasps crawling all over this plant. I took a few snaps and moved on. I didn't want to disturb the feeding frenzy.

The purple and pink fuzzy flowers are Pulsatilla (aka Pasque flower). The wiki article says these are toxic but I have herbalist friends that use a tincture of this plant for anxiety. You don't need much for it to work but no one should mess around with toxic plants unless they are under the supervision of a trained herbalist.

The two fields of flowers are Indian Warrior Pedicularis densiflora (both photos by TreeGeek). Someone was telling me that Pedicularis plants are in high demand. Apparently they help with spasm-type pain. I'm not sure exactly how they are prepared for medicinal use. They may look familiar to those of you who know Indian Paintbrush - they are very similar in appearance.

What's blooming in your area? Happy Spring!