Calla Lily Emerges

 One day I noticed the shoots coming up. 

 The lovely spotted leaves of the chocolate calla lilies gave me hope for a bloom...

But no luck this year.  Now the temps are close to 100 and I had to bring them inside.  Nevertheless, I am so glad they made it through the brutal winter.

Trumpet Flowers Bloom Again

This year's trumpet flowers have more pink color than their usual orange hue.

The Good Bees

Bees are disappearing from America.  This is not a well-known fact but it is true, nonetheless.  Last year when bees invaded a crawl space between the exterior bricks of my house, I panicked when they arrived in my bathroom and bedroom and hallway.  I could hear the droning of their wings beating faster than the human eye can comprehend, as if I were in an old Alfred Hitchcock movie.  In my ignorance, I called the exterminator and he killed them all, much to my relief.  Their near seven pounds of honey was ruined in the process.  Exterior bricks had to be removed and after it was over, I had to hire a mason to get the house back together. 

In the meantime, I learned how all of our good honey bees are disappearing. http://news.discovery.com/animals/honey-bees-disappearing-still-a-problem.html.  It isn't just the human error causing the problem.  But we humans can be part of the solution.

That's why this year, when the bees invaded a space just outside my bedroom window, I called a beekeeeper instead of an exterminator.  He removed them all with a safe vacuum cleaner-type of tube and took them to his multi-million bee farm.  I felt a lot better about this approach.  These are the flowers around my house that the bees favor, sweet and full of nectar.  I see many bees again and wonder if they have returned.  The mason has already repaired the area where bricks were removed.  Hmmm, I wonder if I will have to do this all over again?

Sago Palm With New Shoots

I have been away from my blog much too long, mostly due to caring for my husband who has had multiple strokes.  Slowly, I am coming back to photography... I hope to get out more.  The other day, I noticed new shoots on the sago palm that I had trimmed back so drastically last year that I wondered if I had killed it.  The sign of the new shoots was more than a bit of a relief. 

Coleus

When I was a child, my mother grew coleus plants in the shady part of our backyard. Seeing them evokes those childhood days and all the fun I had in the backyard. My brother and I would hang a hose over a large Massey tree and run through the water pretending to be in the wilds of Africa, plunging through our make-believe waterfall.

Hibiscus Blooms Again

This beautiful peachy hibiscus is blooming in a garden on my street. These flowers remind me of Hawaii although they are native to many tropical climates. The petals are often used to make a tea.

Pampas Grass

Pampas grass is blooming in Houston, as the summer segues into fall. Most of our daytime temps have been in the mid-80s for the last week or so, but today was a burner!