Morning bloomshine

I wandered outside this morning, camera in hand, planning to get some more photos of the flowers on my succulents for an upcoming post on them. But I was so distracted, captivated is more like it, by some of the other flowers in bloom now that here I am blogging about them instead.

The star turn right now is Pam's dark-leafed pelargonium. You can barely see the leaves not only because they're so dark but also because of the covering of dazzling pinky-salmon blooms. "It needs repotting" says she who owns the plant, to he who has to keep it happy. Not until if finishes flowering, Pammy, and that won't be for a while.

I blog on so often about the poppy patch that I feel like I must be boring everyone silly, but it's such a source of pleasure here. They've been blooming for months now, and they won't stop for at least another month at least. Here's one that's only minutes from popping, next to a self-sown 'wild' one (these always show up during the last month or so of each poppy season).

Deep inside each poppy bloom is a lolly shop for bees. While bees usually just dab their paws to get some pollen from other blooms, I often see bees actually rolling around in the wide dishes of poppy pollen and covering their whole bodies in fluffy yellow dust. They look like they're in a delirium of pleasure.

Looking into the wild poppy reveals complexity and mystery aplenty.

If it's possible for the sage flowers to look better than they did two days ago, when I last blogged about them, then they do.

Twin throats of sage are ready for insecty visits.

While I'm admiring purpley-blue blooms, I might as well toss in yet another flower of our newish Tibouchina 'Groovy Baby', which started blooming in late autumn and is still at it in early spring. This is a new dwarf tibouchina which grows only 60cm tall, and so far it has been utterly prolific with the flowers, and it has also managed to grow a bit too.

Well, sometime soon I'll finish the photos I need for that succulent flower posting, but as for what to blog about next, I voted with my camera lens. I blame Pam's pelargonium for starting it. It really is dazzling right now. It's a plant she brought back from the Florafest Festival in 2009, and while it looked quite nice back then it has really come into its own this year. That happens with some plants. They take a year or two in their new home before they announce to the world "hey, I like it here."