But first, weather is shifting, it's been breezy/windy, perfect weather that may give way to some rain later in the week. My seedlings are pared down to three tomatoes now and finally had to bring the other two pots indoors to keep an eye on them since they have dried out twice now. Doesn't speak well for germination for sure. I don't think I'll be able to plant the sweet peas this year.
JAMBO!
(Hello in Swahili)
Had a lot of fun at the Safari Park and was able to get some pictures of interesting flowers and plants. Not too many animals out and we were only there for about four and a half hours.
Nothing too unusual but Clivia is one of my favorite flowers for the huge clusters of orange flowers. Not too many blooming but was happy to see this one near the entrance.
Had to get a picture of this immense, life size sculpture of a giraffe and her baby. There is Clivia planted there but the previous picture was taken further down the trail.
Golden yellow bamboo forest was just spectacular. I didn't see a name plate for it other than who donated money for putting it in. It was really gorgeous and better lit than the picture.
It was crowded enough that I didn't want to be 'that' tourist and take pictures of plants every twenty feet but had to stop and get these where it wasn't so crowded. We trekked up the hill to the Australia area and the first on is a tall single trunk Eucalyptus that apparently was a weeping variety with palm sized yellow flowers and leaves almost the size of my hand. Spectacular but hard to get a good photo. The other one is something I had never seen before. It is an Acacia glaucoptera. I had to use google lens to find out what it was. Again, the only failing for the park is not enough signs for individual plants. It is such a very unique plant with little puffball flowers maybe no bigger than a quarter inch at the joints of each angled stem. As a note, those are not leaves, mature acacias have modified stems and very few have true leaves.
Had to look this one up as well. Hakea francisiana. I thought it was possibly a grevillea but somehow that didn't seem right. Absolutely stunning contrast of the almost salmon pink brush flowers and long grey leaves. Sadly the only grower that ever had it was San Marcos Growers and they are selling off their plants and the company to allow low income housing on the property. So sad to see them go, they had so many unusual plants that the nursery tried to keep in stock.
And then there was this.... in the small bonsai section on the way up to Australia, among all the other well tended bonsai, a Lego bonsai tree on display. I thought it was absolutely hilarious and heard someone ask, 'is that a Lego tree?!'. Made me smile to see them have a sense of humor like that. Could only imagine a docent giving a tour .... 'and here we have a very well tended bonsai sakura legoiana'.
Not much else going on, beds are undisturbed, keep forgetting to bring the lettuce seeds with me to put in the south bed. But if we are going to get rain will have to do that on Wednesday or Thursday when it's supposed to rain.
No new soil yet, waiting for budget to settle out since we spent a little bit too much at the park and other places. More pictures when that happens of course.
