Not at a seafood restaurant but in my garden! It’s English name is “Golden Shrimp Plant” and it is a beautiful heavy-bloomer year-around, at least here where we have year-around Spring! The last additions to my garden included one of these plants and I love it. Read about it on Wikipedia or since it is used in gardens in the states during warm weather, read more on this Master Gardener website.
“Hidden in the glorious wildness like unmined gold.”
― John Muir
He’s revisiting my garden and thus I’m posting some new photos of a favorite bee here. See my Bees Gallery for some better photos made earlier or posted on earlier blog posts linked below. And if interested in reading about this Central American bee, there’s a good history on Wikipedia. (People in Florida are trying to introduce them there.)
He was showing an interest in one of my dried up flowers in the garden the other day and I have not found a name for him yet – just another interesting creation of God!
“Why should man value himself as more than a small part of the one great unit of creation? And what creature of all that the Lord has taken the pains to make is not essential to the completeness of that unit — the cosmos?”
― John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf
On this cloudy morning I walk up the hill above my house and back at less than an hour with these colorful photos even without sunshine. Nature is everywhere and my favorite way to celebrate “May Day” or May 1.
May, more than any other month of the year, wants us to feel most alive.
~Fennel Hudson
May Day Birds
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May Day Flowers
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May Day Vistas
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I took a walk in the woods and came out taller than the trees.
Okay, yesterday I compared waterfalls so today as I finished my last gallery in the Pre-Costa Rica TENNESSEE Photos gallery, I must do the same with wildflowers. The last gallery for the state of Tennessee is simply Tennessee WILDFLOWERS and again I tried to pick just one photo from each of about 150 species of wildflowers for this gallery with more variety or multiple images in the location galleries where they first appear. The wildflowers were another of the many elements of nature that I enjoyed during my 37 years in Tennessee with an amazing variety!
Tennessee Coneflower — Growing across from my Nashville row house in the Bicentennial Capital Mall State Park where I spent many hours with nature.
And the featured photo at top is on a huge Magnolia tree in the same park near my house. The beauty of nature is everywhere!
-o-
Similarly I have enjoyed the beautiful tropical wildflowers (most of my garden is wildflowers). See my Costa Rica through regional flower galleries in my big gallery of flowers I call FLORA & FOREST Costa Rica. Click and enjoy! I’ve only been here 5 and a half years, but spend most of my time with nature now! Just one of the many reasons I love being Retired in Costa Rica!
Growing in a ditch along my street uphill from my house. Pura vida!
“Do you know why wildflowers are the most beautiful blossoms of all, my son?”
Dain shook his little head.
Soft waxen curls blew forward in the breeze as she lifted her storm-gray eyes to gaze out over the sea of petals. “Wildflowers are the loveliest of all because they grow in uncultivated soil, in those hard, rugged places where no one expects them to flourish. They are resilient in ways a garden bloom could never be. People are the same, son—the most exquisite souls are those who survive where others cannot. They root themselves, along with their companions, wherever they are, and they thrive.”
I’m pretty sure I’ve shown this flower before and still don’t know its name, but like it! It is one I regularly pass by on my walks to town, which is only about 2 times a week now. Staying inside or in my yard mostly and may start showing more of my own flowers again as I did 2 days ago with “Mini-Art”, though most from my garden will be repeats for the blog.
And then there’s myFLORA & FOREST Galleries if you want more! 🙂
PLUS
Today is Earth Day 2020
Join in Earth Day Live: April 22-24
Earth Day Live is a three-day live stream and an epic community mobilization to show support for our planet, through which millions of people can tune in online alongside activists, celebrities, musicians, and more. The massive live event — which starts on April 22 and concludes on April 24 — is organized by climate, environmental, and Indigenous groups within the US Climate Strike Coalition and Stop The Money Pipeline Coalition.
No new flower or wildlife in these photos, but each one is a new expression of “nature as art” as I walked through my garden Sunday with camera in hand. I love doing this occasionally and though maybe the same subjects, the art is different each time!
Triquitraque
Bougainvillea
Torch Ginger
Clay-colored Thrush or Yigüirro singing in the rain.
Green Orchid Bee on Porter Weed
Golden Shrimp Plant
Blue Plumbago
Crown of Thorns
Tibouchina or Princess Flower
Thornless Crown of Thorns
Once de Abril
God’s Confetti — Bougainvillea
Southern Broken Dash Skipper on Once de Abril plant
Polydamas Swallowtail on Porter Weed
Shampoo Ginger
And that Yigüirro is singing his heart out every day now “calling the rains in” which happens every April in anticipation of the May rains or the beginning of the rainy season, our winter here. That is why he is the national bird of Costa Rica.
The Green Orchid Bee or Euglossa dilemma(Wikipedia) is a Central American Bee found only here naturally (and occasionally in my garden) though recently introduced into South Florida (an invasive species there). I like them for their iridiscente green color added to my garden from time to time. I do have a Bees Gallery for more photos of this and other bees here. Just one of the thousands of interesting insects in Costa Rica that I enjoy watching! 🙂 See also my Butterflies and More Insects Galleries for more bugs!
There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo. Even a bicycle goes too fast.
