garden tour

Every month or so I do a little tour of the garden with my camera and inevitably find something strange and wonderful. The insects are always a surprise, like this mysterious fly -- bright blue body with bright orange stripes, polka-dot wings, and white-tipped antennae. We have a whole patch of the red amaryllis - at least 30 blooming at the same time. The Jacarundi are blooming now as well. The blossoms are this surreal purple on the bare branches of these giant trees; most spectacular is that they are the first trees to bloom before any others have bloomed or even gotten their spring leaves. The blossoms rain down and fall to a purple carpet.

(Below, Bev and Jane got to see the Jacaranda trees in bloom last year-- the Flame Trees bloom next!) I think the jac. trees are found in southern california, too.

Lastly, with apologies to my sister, the gardener, a tour of the garden inevitably reveals some overenthusiastic pruning. I take the blame but only because I had asked the gardener to "trim."

The pruning project did shed some light on our ongoing electrical issues. This is the fine work of the state-run power company, who recently installed a pre-paid meter at the house. This is a good thing, something we'd been on the waiting list for this entire year, but the guys only hooked up part of the house--the rest is coming in with no meter. It is a long and yet-to-be-resolved saga -- their solution was to come and disconnect us (which they did not end up doing). Like I say, it's a long story.
On a happier note, one of my favorites, cosmos (from the Washington State Capital grounds)

Addendum: on today's garden tour? a first: a baby vervet monkey hopping around in our frangipani/plumeria