This blog started with small daily paintings then changed to a more personal sharing of projects, events and photos. Enjoy!

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Pride of Madeira

Each spring when these bushes send up their spires of blooms, I'm always amazed! I've lived here on the central coast of CA for about thirty years. When I first traveled out here, it really was like being on another planet. Rhode Island has trees and shrubs that can survive the cold winters, deciduous plants and evergreens. Morro Bay has these too, but because we get very little freezing weather, the houseplants I was once familiar with back east, were growing here, in the ground and they were huge--glorious--mammoth versions of what I'd seen in those pitiful house pots--jade--all kinds of cacti--begonia--fuchsia. Then some plants I'd never seen like these Pride of Madeira--huge monster plants that grow so quickly in poor dirt with very little water-- such a striking blueish purple. Right now the blooms are at their peak.

They grow along the sides of the road,

In different colors,


Hummingbirds love them,

And bees!

4 comments:

martha miller said...

WOW!!!!!
Beautiful plants, and terrific pictures!!! you're right - when i visited you i was astonished at what grows wild out there! i remember mike cutting down calla lillies so he could plant a graden! calla lilles! 20 bucks a stem in the east! the thing we do have here in the east that could compare to your pride of madeira is the lupine!

word verification: hyperel
those plants ARE hyperreal!!

Susan Beauchemin said...

Really!! $2o. a stem!! Oh man they grow like crazy out here. I love and miss the east coast very much. I guess every place has its own particular beauty.

Dean Grey said...

Gorgeous Susan!

They almost look like hyacinths but with tinier blooms.

-Dean

Susan Beauchemin said...

They do!