Tomorrow, May 15, will make the 60th day of our San Francisco Bay Area Counties Shelter In Place order. Sixty Days is a really long time. And the Shelter In Place order extends at least through May 31. Living in an apartment with a dog, I am allowed out of the apartment to walk her. This understandably counts as an essential trip. I spend an hour and walk a mile, always wearing a mask, keeping at least 6 feet apart from any other walkers, and taking my camera with me. The dog, the exercise of the daily walk, and my camera, have helped to keep me sane and for the most part, kept depression at bay. And knowing that the one hour is all I have, I have found that I have become even more of a noticer. By default, one has to be a noticer in order to be a photographer, but I have found that my noticing skills are heightened this spring. In particular, I have discovered that there are a plethora of unusual flowers in the neighborhood. Most of the unique ones seem to be on flowering bushes or trees, rather than specific flower species such as roses or snapdragons. Here are four. Does anyone know the names of these straight away? I didn’t, though I’m not a person that knows a lot of the flower names. But I definitely had to look each of these up. Points to anyone who can identify them without looking at the labels.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Answers: 1: Tree Aeonium. 2: Tritomea, aka: Toarch Lily, aka: Red Hot Poker. 3: Blue Passion Flower. 4: Trailing Abutilon.
Posted for SPTA’s Friendly Friday’s Something New/Something Different as well as the same challenge for The Sandy Chronicles.
Zebra's Child 
Lovely photos! I’ll be honest the only one I knew was the « red hot poker »
Thanks Sheree! When I looked up that name I had a chuckle. 🙂
All beautiful, I think it must be the west coast weather that promotes these flowers. I saw the Red Hot Poker for the first time when I visited Vancouver island and cant remember seeing it elsewhere . I don’t often notice flowers but it was so unusual and striking.
Yes Sandy, I think you’re right. I would clarify that is probably west coast coastal weather. I doubt that these plants would thrive in weather that is 100+ degrees.
… or 23 degree winters 🙂
Yes, that too! 😂
Thank you for this interesting challenge!
Happy to see you joining in!
It’s my turn to host tomorrow — come and check out a new Friendly Friday Challenge 🙂
I am late to the party here, so my apologies for that. Got sidetracked when I went to check your pingback. But I am here now and thankful to see those flowers. I guessed Red hot poker and passion flower, the easy ones. The others, I don’t think I have every seen in real life. It sounds like it is tough for you at the moment, but it is great that you and the dog get to exercise together for an hour. Getting outside is more difficult in an apartment, but do you have a view of sorts?
I am fortunate to have a lovely view and a large balcony with some plants on it. It’s difficult that we can’t even visit with others here in the building. And of course driving over to visit family can’t happen. And since we are a retirement community, everyone in the building is vulnerable to COVID 19 due to age. Thus we were the first to Shelter In Place, and will be the last to be able to resume going back out into the world. Since our government is doing nothing to stop the spread of the virus, the COVID threat will remain for a very long time.
I am sorry to hear that things are grim in the short term. I hope that you stay well and can find ways to stay safe and healthy during this time. A balcony and view is priceless.
Thank you! 🙏