May 8
Not to be outdone by the other cactus, my Christmas Cholla (Cylindropuntia leptocaulis) is absolutely loaded with blooms…the most I’ve ever seen! The 1 inch blooms prefer late afternoon light which, coincidentally, so do I 🙂 Captured late yesterday (hand held) with my Canon 100mm Macro lens.
May 4
Blooms are numerous on our cactus this Spring! This gorgeous orangy-red specimen is another of the non-natives in my yard. Capturing a fast moving native bee is always a bonus!
May 2
Teddybear Cholla (Cylindropuntia bigelovii) are described as having green flowers but when fully open, the color is mostly cream. This particular cactus is in my yard and is loaded with dozens of blooms at the moment. Canon 24-70mm at f/5.
Apr 30
Javelina LOVE non-native cactus so in years past, this poor Prickly Pear has not been allowed to fully bloom. But Javelina Cafe is now closed so all my non-natives finally have a chance to show off and they are making up for lost time. Besides what you see here, there are at least 25 more buds waiting to open on this Prickly Pear! I had fun photographing the blooms with various lenses yesterday. I couldn’t decide on just one image so here is a collage.
Apr 22
Some members of my digital club joined me at the Desert Botanical Garden yesterday morning. There were plenty of blooms including many species of Echinopsis such as this candicans (aka Argentine Giant). I love the underside of these beauties so I got down low and lined them up with a blooming Palo Verde. I used a wide aperture so the background would go nice and soft. Canon 70-200mm @182mm, ISO 400, 1/640th sec at f/4.
Apr 21
Two blooms opened yesterday on my Torch cactus. An apropos common name for this gorgeous cactus. More blooms to come, I hope!
Apr 19
This marks the first year I’ve been able to fully enjoy my non-native cactus blooms thanks to Javelina Cafe. The first blooms were great! Up next and full of fat buds are the Echinopsis huascha (upper right – red), Echinopsis Hybrid (lower left – much larger salmon) and a couple of non-native Prickly Pears. One funky purple (bottom right) with extra long purple spines has yellow flowers. The other (upper left) has gorgeous rose-like pink flowers. I’ve only seen it bloom once! So far the (less than ideal height) fence has held off the Javelina but all these juicy buds will be a real test 🙂
Apr 8
We had a beautiful sunny day yesterday which this Lady Finger Cactus obviously preferred because the blooms opened a little wider and there were more of them than the day before. Sorry Javelina….you’re not getting them this year!
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