Are you sick of flowers yet?

Wild Flowers in Cathedral City

When I was a child we lived closed to a beach where the flowers grew quite easily. In one particular house we have a huge (at least to a four year old girl) bush of what we deemed "Barbie Doll Bouquets", because they were a bundle of minuscule florets fire-cracking from a single stem head. All we had to do was pick one tiny stem and it was the perfect nosegay or bridal bouquet for Barbie or Midge to hold as they hopped their way across our play yard.

As I went in search of wild flowers I came across the wild cousins to those flowers of my childhood. The prettiest of purple and a gorgeous yellow. The only thing different was the bush and the greens. In my childhood the bushes were full, lush, and about three or four feet tall, thick broad leaves, hearty wood trucks and deep green stems. The wild versions were very low to the ground only growing about a foot tall, no woody base, fragile rather, and trailing rather than bushy. The florets, however, were the same!
It brought back a flood of memories just looking at them! (how come if there is a Barbie, a Midge, and a Ken ...I always end up as Ken? That's what you get when you're the baby of the Three Hip Sisters!)

Then there are the tiny pink buds that wake up and unfold into the palest of pink flowers, so small, the size of thumbnail. They have little yellow balls that announce to any near by bees: "Hey! Here we are! Aren't we adorable?"

Lady bugs are so enthralled they don't bother with snacking, they just hang out and smell the perfume while working on their tan.