Red and green

 One red dahlia.

Bright sunlight, deepish shade under taller plants.

I'm still here. But my photo processing program in a fit of pique has started crashing at random intervals, taking with it any recent work. Reading it the riot act tomorrow.

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Una dahlia roja, en la sombra, pero con algunos pétalos en pleno sol.

No he abandonado el blog, pero el programa de Photoshop anda de malas y se declara en huelga. Lo peor es que ha borrado trabajo concluido. Pero no me doy por vencida; ya verá quien manda aquí.

Never saw a shy tulip before

HIdden away behind and beneath the blooming apple trees, back against the fence, I saw a square inch of red. I thought it must have been a piece of plastic bag, blown in during the last windstorm, so, muttering about careless people who toss plastic into the street, I pulled aside branches and squirmed behind trunks to remove it.

A pleasant surprise! Not plastic, after all!

Shy tulip

If wishes were horses*

It's raining. My geraniums are blooming.

So red!

And I feel vaguely guilty over feeling happy for the coolness and the clearing air, and over my annoyance at finding muddy cat footprints across my desk, while wildfires rage up and down the west, hurricanes play tag in the Atlantic, a major earthquake shakes Mexico, floods drown South Asia, with malaria and dengue fever following in their tracks, the Koreas prepare for war ...

"Stay safe, everybody!" doesn't cut it. I am so sorry.

*"If wishes ..."

Luscious red

Looks good enough to eat.

Sea noodles, aka Succulent seaweed, Sarcodiotheca gaudichaudii.

When fresh the red string seaweed may be used in salads.  In the Philippines it is made into a sweet desert. (from Puget Sound Sea Life)

I found a generous helping of this last October, but it looked shop-worn, and I didn't taste it. And this time, there was so little of it, I didn't want to deprive the shore critters, so I still haven't tried it. Next time. I wonder if there's a recipe for the dessert.

Red, green, brown. All green shore crabs, Hemigrapsus oregonensis.

I like the red eyes of the centre crab. I feel a sort of kinship with her: she's an insomniac, like me, maybe?

Upside-down flower

Early this spring, I bought a small cyclamen plant for my front window. I had never grown cyclamen before, but the flowers were pretty, and red, and nothing else in the store was in bloom yet.

Silky, flowing, backwards petals.

It bloomed all spring, then produced a good crop of round seed pods, and shut down. But it likes my window, and a month later, up came the flowers again, for the rest of the summer.

Luscious colours

More seed pods followed. As soon as they were ripe, more flower buds appeared in the centre of the plant.

While flowering, florists' cyclamens should be kept below 20 °C (68 °F), with the night time temperatures preferably between 6.5 °C to 15 °C (44 °F to 59 °F). Temperatures above 20 °C (68 °F) may induce the plant to go dormant. (Wikipedia)

So we share a fondness for cool weather; I keep my windows open until it snows.

The latest bud, and interesting leaves.

The flower opens downward, and may be self-pollinating.

Some species are frost-hardy. I'll have to try growing some outside for the grey months.