Bottle brush tree, Roscoe

I have a small bed planted to four Asian trees. A ginkgo, a Japanese maple, a Loquat and this tree, a bottle brush tree. It blooms heavily in the Spring and this is it's best year ever. Soon the ground will be covered with little bottle brushes.

Green doors, Jax Beach

 Once more, on my Sunday walk, I ended up channeling Carl Weese. These just popped out at me and I could not resist.

Lock and planes, Jax Beach, for Carl

This was a picture I took last Sunday on my walk. The day before Carl Weese, on his blog, Working Pictures, had posted a picture of a padlock. In that picture the lock was on a plain green wooden wall or door and was the only thing breaking the plane of the door. So what do I find? A lock that is one of many planes or levels. It's a nice view standing on Carl's shoulders (He is quite tall:-)

Lee's tree

My wife's best friend lives in Winston-Salem NC. She is an avid gardener, and, like most avid gardeners, loves to share. She gave us this tree when it was a sapling and I planted it by the Intra Coastal Waterway 20 years ago. It is now about thirty feet tall and lovely. Every Spring it exfoliates it's bark in large cork-like sheets. To me it looks very Japanese and I have started a project to make photographs like Japanese paintings and woodcuts. I will have to ask Lee, for the 500th time the exact name of the tree and report it here. I think it is related to the Eucalyptus but my memory is poor on the subject. There will be more f these as I take them.

Leaf, Roscoe

Ah, Florida, land of opposites. Our trees, for the most part, lose their leaves quietly, without the colorful display, in December and January. Then, in February, the swamp maples put forth bright red seed pods that look like Fall colors. Then the regular trees start, in March, to bud out and are soon covered in that lovely Spring green. Once that is done, the magnolias, trees that apparently evolved before bees, start to shed their large leathery leaves, by the thousands. I have 6 magnolias on my little lot and Magnolia season has started, as evidenced by this early arrival. So we now have an real overlap where I spend part of the day planting new plants and veggies and another part raking these tough leaves and composting them. So we get Autumn and Spring at the same time. At least the bugs are still sleeping.

Azaleas, Roscoe

 Our white azaleas. Spring took about four days to take us from dormant to plants on steroids. So, on the first day of Spring here is how it looks down here in Palm Valley. And no bugs!........yet.

Clyde and Corinne's multi-colored ones.

Delusions of grandeur.

 This little hawk, (pardon my ignorance, I'm not sure which hawk.), Was perched atop our local church with it's symbolic fish weathervane. It lives among Ospreys and probably was just showing off.

Morning P.V. Beach, March 9th, 2015, 69F, calm. One reason we live here.

More mailboxes, North Roscoe

 These are all within a mile. We are a strange and varied bunch here on North Roscoe.

Window house, P.V.Blvd.

I just can't get over the feeling, when I look at this house, that the contractor had a warehouse full of little windows and saw his chance.

Spring is creeping in!

All of our early trees are exploding with Spring leaves. Woo-hoo