Hibiscuses (sp?)

I miss all the green of the Keys.

I miss watching (and hearing) the palm branches swaying in the wind. I miss seeing all the plants that we grow in pots here up north that flower and thrive as trees, more or less, where it is warm all year long.

I could not shoot several hundred photos without snapping a few shots of flowers. My favorites, of course, were the hibiscus plants I saw from place to place. These are not the kind that basically bloom one day and close the next like my beloved hibiscus, the one I have been growing for a year and a half now, the one that survives in spite of my notorious green thumb. The ones I saw in Key West are actual flowers that grow on huge plants and stay open, soaking up as much sunshine as they possibly can.

Flowers that stay open long enough to fade, color-wise, their somewhat delicate petals battered, at times, by the tropical breeze.

I especially liked this one:



Before I had left home, I noticed that my hibiscus had a bloom in-the-making. Judging by its size, I figured it would bloom whilst I was away, then close up and perhaps even fall off the plant long before I returned.

My plant held on long enough for me to get back, and then, today, it bloomed. (Or, as my pal Tee-Hee who fusses at me for never writing a post about her would say, “bloomt.”) For the first time since late fall when I had to bring it inside.



And, quite frankly, I believe it is every bit as dazzling as the hibiscuses I saw in the Keys.

Perhaps moreso.



Even if it is only for a day.