Last month my husband and I went to Sanibel Island, Florida. We were there to meet up with his family and celebrate his mother’s birthday. Aside from one rainy day the weather was lovely and I took a lot of walks. On each one I saw lush vegetation like this.
Where I live roses grow very easily – in fact they can easily get overgrown and are frankly hard to kill… But fortunately they’re usually really pretty, like these.
This dragonfly patiently posed on the tip of a water iris leaf (stalk?) while I moved around and took pictures. This one I cropped to use as my facebook cover photo.
A pair of yellow water lilies came up next to each other, and I decided to capture them through the day as they opened up. I hope you enjoy it!
When my husband insisted on putting plants into our pond, I wasn’t as keen. But he was definitely right about the water lilies – and now we regularly talk about it being a “5 lily day” when there are that many in bloom. Just gorgeous.
One thing I love about dogwoods compared to cherry trees is that their blooms last a very very long time. I get to enjoy them over and over.
This time the grafted dual-color plant I saw was an azalea. This was in Fairfax, Virginia. Simply lovely.
Last year my aunt gave my mother a “Christmas Cactus” – nearly every one I’ve seen had red blooms, but this one has white/pink blooms. Normally giving my mother a plant is a risky proposition, but she does well with the succulents and the cactus bloomed like crazy this year. It’s a very pretty accent in their kitchen.
My in-laws sent my husband and me paperwhite bulbs this year. I dutifully watered the container and lo and behold, up they popped. I’m sorry to know that since they were forced to bloom out of season (technically not a winter flower) this is probably it. But I’ll give it a go to see if I can keep them alive. In the meantime:
Best wishes to all of you and yours for a happy, safe, and prosperous new year!
I am 99% certain my mother took this photo last summer. I know it wasn’t this summer because we didn’t put in water hyacinth this year. They are a lovely flower – but they bloom for about a day and that is it. Plus, they are annuals where I live. But I admit, the dragonflies did enjoy posing on top of them! Of course, this one isn’t in bloom. Below is a photo of one fully bloomed – which you have to have good timing to get since they only last a day. Apologies for the blur; I believe this was with my phone and the lens was probably not so clean. Or, you can assume I used a nice filter for this effect.
Flowers are more cooperative than frogs, in that they do not dive under the water when I set up the camera. This lily has such lovely variation in color, so I had to share it.
@KellyOSullivan 
