Texas Mountain Laurel Tree, etc.

Flower cluster of the Texas Mountain Laurel tree. Blooms with a sweet aroma... smell better at a distance than up close. This Texas Mountain Laurel tree is in the Sunscape Cactus Garden. Just beautiful. Pictures really don't do it justice. Here we have a huge bumble bee having a feast.The bumble bee's wings are a beautiful iridescent color, translucent like fairy wings.  If you look real hard, you can see them in this picture and the one above.  Joined by many honey bees. There's one buried in a bloom in the lower right just above the date stamp. On the other Texas Mountain Laurel tree, the blooms are gone now and these seed pods have replaced the blooms.  They're about 1 1/2" - 2" in length, very hard and the seeds rattle inside when shaken.Toma called this a Claret Cup Hedge Hog.  I can't wait until these buds open.Yellow Bird of Paradise. Shoestring Acacia tree.  Resembles a Weeping Willow.  Toma checking out the Shoestring Acacia tree. A Fairy Duster.  Cute, huh? Somehow reminds me of Biblical times. Guess what this is? And a close-up of the Pin Cushion flower. An Emu bush. Penstemon plant and flowers. Lavender Winter Bee. (Toma is a walking plant encyclopedia and I'm loving it!) Red Poppy.  How do I know it's red?  Come back tomorrow for an update. Now this Monkey Tail doesn't look like much except interesting, but the flowers promise to be breathtaking. This is on Jim and Toma's patio. Toma's pansies. At this point, I have to tell you about Jim and Toma's summer home similar to the park model they have here, but more cabin looking.  It's in the woods by a big lake in the middle of Minnesota.  They swim, fish for walleye salmon and hunt agates all summer along the three mile long sand beach (water is shallow and warm for many yards out into the lake) that they have access to and that, almost privately.  They take the agates they find and in-lay them into bricks, pavers and other items.  Here's a bottle of agates that Toma brought with her to their winter home here. While in Arizona, one of their hobbies is collecting glass and pottery shards, which they inlay into pavers, stepping stones, and bricks that they use here.  Pavers like this lead to the cactus garden from their patio and also to the street in front from their patio. Here they have stacked the bricks they made, with milk cartons, to look like a well.  They are so creative.

Toma and Jim fascinate me.  I sure hope I don't wear out my welcome.  They are such sweet people and we both appreciate the same things ... nature, etc.

We are so blessed!