Bloom Photos – Page 26

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Lost in the details of the white powder puff tree - Calliandra Haematocephala

Macro Monday: Identifying the powder puff tree (Calliandra)

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Today I’m taking part in Macro Monday at Lisa’s Chaos. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I love taking photos of flowers and plants, but I’m terrible at identifying what they are. I recently featured some beautiful pink and fuzzy flowers but I had no idea what they were at first. When I posted the photo on my Facebook page, someone kindly told me the flowers belonged to the New Zealand Christmas Tree. After googling that tree, I was pretty convinced and so I wrote my post around this specific tree.

Now, here’s the catch. I visited the San Diego Botanic Garden this weekend and I saw fuzzy flowers that looked just like the pink ones but they were white. So I looked at the tree label and it said… White powder puff – Calliandra Haematocephala. Ha!

The powder puff tree – Calliandra Haematocephala – can feature fuzzy flowers that are either pink or white depending on its variety. The powder puff shaped flowers are beautiful in either color, so for this Macro Monday post, I’m featuring both colors for your enjoyment.

Remember you can click on each photo below for a larger view.

Macro Monday: pink powder puff tree - Calliandra Haematocephala — Macro Monday: pink powder puff tree – Calliandra Haematocephala

The berries you see on the photo are not edible. They actually are the flower buds before they bloom. Aren’t these blooms pretty?

Macro Monday: pink powder puff flowers - Calliandra Haematocephala — Macro Monday: pink powder puff flowers – Calliandra Haematocephala

Now here’s the white variety of these powder puff flowers. You can really see how they got their name.

Macro Monday: white powder puff tree - Calliandra Haematocephala — Macro Monday: white powder puff tree – Calliandra Haematocephala

Macro Monday: white powder puff flowers - Calliandra Haematocephala — Macro Monday: white powder puff flowers – Calliandra Haematocephala

Macro Monday: The pink and fuzzy flowers of the New Zealand Christmas Tree

February 18, 2013: I discovered the flowers below don’t belong to the New Zealand Christmas tree but instead to the Powder Puff Tree. View more photos of powder puff trees, including white and pink flowers.

Today I’m taking part in Macro Monday at Lisa’s Chaos. This is my first time and I hope to participate every week if I have the photos to contribute.

For this macro theme, I’m featuring a couple of photos I took this weekend at the San Diego Zoo. The weather was mostly cloudy but it still made for some decent lighting to capture these close-up shots.

As always, you can click on each image to view it in a larger format. Enjoy!

Macro Monday: pink fuzzy flowers and dark red berries of the Calliandra Haematocephala

February 11, 2013February 7, 2020 by Milka Pejovic Categories: Bloom Photos, California Photos, Flower Photos, Photography, Photos of San Diego, Tree PhotosTags: California pictures, Calliandra Haematocephala, dark red berries pink flowers, Macro Monday, New Zealand Christmas Tree, photography, photos, photos of blooms, photos of flowers, photos of trees, pink and fuzzy flowers, pink powder puff flower, pink powder puff tree flowers, powder puff flower, powder puff tree, Pōhutukawa, San Diego, San Diego Zoo, tree with dark red berries, tree with pink fuzzy flowers 9 Comments

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Sea - the waves at Coronado Beach

WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that San Diego has been my home for a little over 15 years now. In a way, it feels like it wasn’t that long ago when I drove cross country from Connecticut to California. San Diego has grown on me as my new home over the years. Besides the worrisome wildfires, random earthquakes, and lack of greenery, there’s a lot to like about San Diego and its surroundings. San Diego is my home and here are a few things I enjoy about it. Remember you can click on each image to enjoy a larger view. San Diego is home to the big waves of the Pacific Ocean under a bright blue sky.

Beautiful waves at Coronado Beach, San Diego, California

San Diego is home to a large agricultural community, including a lot of citrus (lemons and oranges, mostly).

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Home - oranges in San Diego — WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home – oranges in San Diego

San Diego is home to not just one single season year round, but also Fall and its bold colors.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Home - changing seasons in San Diego — WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home – changing seasons in San Diego

San Diego can even be home to frost in the winter, especially inland. This is as much cold as I can take!

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Home - frost in winter in San Diego — WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home – frost in winter in San Diego

San Diego is home to beautiful sunrises, especially in the winter.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Home - beautiful sunrise in San Diego — WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home – beautiful sunrise in San Diego

San Diego is also home to beautiful sunsets. This one is from Christmas evening 2012.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Home - beautiful sunset in San Diego — WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home – beautiful sunset in San Diego

San Diego is home to hundreds, probably thousands of different species of animals and plants. It’s also home to the most amazing topiary I’ve ever seen (view more topiary at the San Diego Botanic Garden here).

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Home - amazing topiary at the San Diego Botanic Garden — WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home – amazing topiary at the San Diego Botanic Garden

And as of this week, San Diego is home to some beautiful pear blossoms in Balboa Park. You can view more photos of these pear blossoms in a post next week, so I invite you subscribe to this site if you haven’t already.

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: Home - pear blossoms at San Diego's Balboa Park — WordPress weekly photo challenge: Home – pear blossoms at San Diego’s Balboa Park

I’m happy to call San Diego home.

February 8, 2013February 7, 2020 by Milka Pejovic Categories: Bloom Photos, California Photos, Christmas Photos, Flower Photos, Fruit Photos, Landscape Photos, Ocean photos, Photography, Photos of San Diego, Plant Photos, Sky Photos, Sunrise Photos, Sunset photos, Tree Photos, Water photosTags: beautiful sunrise, beautiful sunset, frost photos, orange photos, Pacific ocean photos, San Diego, San Diego Balboa Park, San Diego beach, San Diego pear blossoms, San Diego sunset Christmas 2012 6 Comments

Wordpress weekly photo challenge: the hue of you - lampranthus productus iceplant

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Flowers

I’m participating in the online adventure travel and photography magazine LetsBeWild.com’s Wild Weekly Photo Challenge for bloggers. This week’s Challenge is: Flowers.

Yeah! Flowers are one of my favorite subjects to photograph. I used quite a few photos of flowers in my 2013 12-month photo calendar, didn’t I?

Why do I love photographing flowers so much? First, they still mostly still, unlike my kids, so I can take my time and find the best angle to photograph them. Unless my kids are standing very impatiently by my side… Second, flowers come in tons of different colors. I love pink and purple (you’ll see one of my most favorite flowers below) but really, flowers look great in almost any color. Third, on top of their awesome colors, some flowers can even smell good. Ah, our world is such a wonderful place…

For this photo challenge on flowers, I’ll share a few photos I took during my most recent visit to the San Diego Botanic Garden. I have many more photos to share about this visit, including some of the most amazing topiary I’ve ever seen. So if you’d like to see them, make sure you subscribe to this blog (sign up in the left sidebar), or to my Facebook page.

It’s one thing to like flowers and take photos of them. It’s another to know the names of the flowers you photograph. Even when I visit the San Diego Botanic Garden, I manage to take photos of flowers that are not labeled, so several of the flowers below will remain nameless, unless you know their names and you’re kind enough to share in the Comments section.

Remember you can click on each photo for a larger view.

Here’s one of my most favorite flower in San Diego. It starts blooming in large patches in January, for about two months – a beautiful way to celebrate winter here. I believe this is called a Pink Aster. And it’s my favorite color too!

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Flowers - Pink asters — Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Flowers – Pink asters

What goes well with flowers? Bees! Here’s a bee on cactus flowers. Very cute, small, yellow flowers as you can see, smaller than a bee. Unfortunately I don’t know what type of cactus this is.

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Flowers - Bee on cactus flowers — Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Flowers – Bee on cactus flowers

Many types of cactus are blooming at this time of year, and aloe is no exception. The one in the front is called Red Aloe, the one in the back Gold Aloe. Don’t they look great?

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Flowers - Red Aloe and Gold Aloe — Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Flowers – Red Aloe and Gold Aloe

My last flower pick is some type of daisy. Unfortunately its petals are not in great shape but I really like the angle of this photo.

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Flowers - Yellow daisy — Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Flowers – Yellow daisy

Stay tuned for a couple more posts on my visit to the San Diego Botanic Garden. I promise you won’t be disappointed, especially with the topiary I found throughout the garden.

February 1, 2013February 7, 2020 by Milka Pejovic Categories: Bloom Photos, California Photos, Flower Photos, Photography, Photos of San Diego, Plant PhotosTags: bee on cactus, bee photos, blooming cactus, cactus blooms, cactus with yellow flowers, California pictures, gold aloe, gold aloe flowers, let's be wild weekly photo challenge, Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Flowers, photography, photos, photos of blooms, photos of flowers, pink aster, red aloe, red aloe flowers, San Diego, yellow daisy, yellow flower cactus 12 Comments

A closer look at the Baccharis Sarothroides bush

A few weeks ago, I gave you a glimpse of the Baccharis Sarothroides bush when I took part in a photo challenge on texture. Today, I wanted to share a few more of the photos I took that day in November while walking through Mission Trails regional park in San Diego County.

The Baccharis bush is very large and tall (probably 7 to 8 feet both ways). Besides its significant size, it doesn’t really stand out, except when it blooms, apparently in late fall. Even though the blooms of the Baccharis Sarothroides bush are not specifically colorful, they’re very numerous and fluffy, and that’s what got my attention.

Click on any image to view the slideshow. To see a larger view of my Baccharis bush photos, scroll down while in slideshow mode and click on “view full size”.

I hope these blooms don’t make you sneeze!