A good spring for flowers

It's really amazing what happens when we get adequate rainfall! I've been very impressed on my morning walks (which I can take every day now!) with the profusion of blooms in the neighborhood this year.

Our wonderful crape myrtles are reliable bloomers even when moisture is scarce. But they seem to have responded especially well to the recent rains and are outdoing themselves. The tree above and on the right is a few blocks away, on my generic walking route. What a treat, to have such sights so easy to hand.

Going through my photos from the past couple of months, I found good snaps further afield as well. Here are some that especially caught my eye, from far and near...

a lovely exotic on the St. Mary's campus...can anyone tell me what it is?

another lovely I can't identify...on the Trinity campus

yet another mystery...there are lots of these little lilies all over...this was at Trinity

sunflower on a neighborhood walk

oodles of lantana everywhere...these are on the beautifully-maintained Trinity campus

lots of yards in the neighborhood like these showy Pride of Barbados

one of my neighbors has this delightful bit of wild meadow in their lawn

I'm not much of a gardener, but even my poor yard has given us some floral bounty. I've never seen this many blooms on my white althea...

please ignore trim that badly needs to be painted

so pretty!

...and it's been a few years since we've had blooms on these severely-neglected day-lilies...

I'll close with a very unusual "flower" that I've seen all over the neighborhood, although not on our own sago palms. (They might not get enough sunlight to be able to produce these amazing cones.) Impressive, eh?