Kingfisher & Wombat
@tkingfisher
Wrote some books, won some awards. Strong feelings about plants. She/her
Kevin came to wake me up and I remembered the teachings of @neolithicsheep.bsky.social and told him to get a warrant. Friends, he returned fifteen minutes later with a handwritten warrant. I love this man.
The combination of annoyance and lust when your husband looks way better in the beach wrap than you do.
I have the most amazing fans. I had somehow never picked this one up for myself, and these wonderful people brought me one!
Kevin has gotten really into resin pouring in his semi-retirement, figured out how to layer, and is now trying to make Pride flag tchotchkes for every flavor of queerness among our friends and relatives.
I mean, look at this photo from High Country Gardens, where I got mine—how wild is THAT?!
And finally, since I took this yesterday afternoon—this is Fameflower, “Judith’s Favorite” a funky little native succulent that takes heat, drought, and crap soil and produces tons of these wild magenta flowers. VERY easy to grow.
The one from yesterday’s #Bloomscroll also opened the rest of the way up. I can’t get a photo that doesn’t have at least two tiny pollinators rolling in it.
IT FLOWERED! Cactus flowers are wildly attractive to pollinators. I was hunched over this one trying to get a photo and a bee dove past my camera and buried itself headfirst inside.
WAIT! We have a late entry! Not the cactus that’s been taunting me, but a very handsome snowball cactus in a pot (and that color is so unreal.)
And that’s the bloomscroll! Enjoy! Plant natives! Go out and look at the ground and all the cool stuff on it!
OBLIGATORY SULPHUR BUCKWHEAT. It’s starting to seed out and has turned to geometric wheels.
This is not flowering, but this is an insanely happy prickly pear.
I keep trying to find new angles to show the amazing volunteer wildflower show in the one gravel strip. Please ignore the dead plants and garden detritus against the house.
Sand penstemon, which really ought to be more widely cultivated. Tough as nails, airy little green bush, and produces these absurd little pink and white flowers.
I call this one “composition with blooming cinquefoil bush and cheap water barrel left by the previous owners.”
Here’s another view of the back garden, facing the other direction.
This row of compact blue-violet penstemon are A) perfect for the front of the border and B) did a weird thing where the bottom flowered first, and it has only now had flowers open on top.
This plant is called “Threadleaf Groundsel” and it is a big, unrestrained, ridiculously drought tolerant plant with that gorgeous silver foliage.
Another Delosperma in a pot! It is absurdly gaudy and unrestrained and I love it.
Salvias are my great love, but since moving here, I’m really getting into penstemon. The big white bells on this gigantic penstemon make it look almost like a foxglove.
We did not plant this penstemon. Best guess is Rocky Mountain penstemon from a seed mix spread last year, that blew or was washed into the dry riverbed drainage area and found it congenial. Another pollinator swarm.
The teeniest of flowers, plains flax, one of our native wildflowers.
Large pink penstemon contrasts really nicely with the dwarf rabbitbrush. I would like to pretend we planned that, but we really just went “oh good, there’s a spot there.” Can’t recommend the dwarf rabbitbrush highly enough in a dry spot.
Seems like a metaphor if you ask me. Let’s look closer at the flower!
The potted Delosperm has survived much brutality and still brings forth a lone flower.