Portland Plants 23:

It's starting to feel like summer, here in Portland. We've already seen the tulips come and go. And many of the irises have begun to wilt as well. Our bushes and trees are starting to look like normal bushes instead of bright, vivid splotches of color. I think it's going to get more and more difficult to find new plants, but we'll see.

This first flower that I'm posting was spotted a week ago. I wanted to include it in Portland Plants 21, but that post was pretty full already. After this first tall purple flower, I'll post some of the photos that I took on a different excursion last week.

I really like these tall flowers with the bud bunches up at the top. There are a few other flowers that grow in this kind of configuration.

These flowers are too crazy to pass up, even though I've already taken a boatload of photos of them already.

Even though some of the irises are starting to wilt, there are still a lot of nice ones, as well as buds that haven't bloomed yet. I wonder how long their season is.

These flowers were early bloomers. There were only a few flowers on this plant that was full of buds.

It looks like it's the end of the season for one of my favorite kind of bush. I spotted this plant way back at the beginning of spring, in Portland Plants 7. When blooming, these bushes are a very vibrant dark blue/purple and almost the whole bush is covered in flowers. Now it's back to being a boring old bush.

These waxy, yellow flowers were pretty cool. They've got an interesting structure and the shininess of the petals is pretty unique. I didn't touch them, so I don't know if they're sticky or wet or what.

I'm told that these are onions.

Our last plant looks like it came directly from Little Shop of Horrors. It's covered in spikes and looks rather ugly. Once these green things open up, they turn into giant orange flowers (maybe they have other colors, but I've only seen orange out here).

"Feed me, Seymour!"

This looks more like livestock giving birth than a flower.

This is what they turn into. Not so bad.

That's going to do it for this post. The weather is so nice, I've been trying to rush through this post so I can get outside with my camera.

I hope this is a good week for all of you!