The desert is finally coming alive with beautiful flowers!  I love wildflowers.  They are everywhere here in the spring.  What you will see in this post are flowers that are blooming right now.  I took all these photos within the last week.  I apologize for the gross lack of scientific names, but it’s late, and I don’t want to look them up.

Slender Cryptantha, Yellow Cryptantha, and Yellow-eye Cryptantha:

1 Crescent Milkvetch, 2 Rimrock Milkvetches, and a Funnel Lily:

Common Paintbrush in habitat and up close, and 2 views of Western Peppergrass:

A TINY flower that I can’t identify, Dwarf Evening-Primrose, Pale Evening-Primrose, and the first of 5 Cisco Woodyaster:

4 more Cisco Woodyasters.  The last one was pink, and of the hundreds we saw today, this was the only pink one.  All others a lovely white.

3 Penstemon utahensis (the whole plant, up close, and in habitat), and one Desert Parsley:

2 Prairie Wild Onions, and 2 Rock-Cress:

A forest of Bottle Plants (AKA Desert Trumpets, AKA Eriogonum inflatum), a solo Bottle Plant (well, I guess it has a friend…), and a can in the midst of the forest for scale:

Yes, I know.  “Whew“, you’re saying. “That was a PLETHORA of photos“.  Enjoy your own area wildflowers!

Spring actually is here!  I am basing this on the fact that not only do I have a garden full of blooming stuff, but I have wonderful, wonderful hayfever as well.

Here are some photos of my grape hyacinths with bees checking them out:

My tulips were a bit tardy this year, thanks to the cold winter – but they have managed to produce more buds and blooms than usual, thanks to the WET winter.

I also have some very pretty blooming weeds in my ‘lawn’ (*yes, it’s ALL weeds.  Please don’t tell anyone*).  There is a dandelion, an unidentified but lovely pink-flowering weed, and our hayfever-inducing favorite, mustard weed:

I usually only have one or two Aliums come up, but this year, I have a BUNCH, and most of them have buds:

My outdoor in-ground cacti seem to be doing very well.  They are plumping up now that it is warmer, and some of them have some nice buds!  Right now, all the buds I can see are on Echinocereus species (Hedgehog cactus, for you laypeople).  Below is one of my Echinocereus triglochidiatus (claret cup) clumps, with a photo of a bud, and a bug that is MUCH too close to the bud:

Here are two of my Echinocereus viridiflorus v. viridiflorus.  These two plants will be the first cacti of the spring to bloom.

…and finally, there is Echinocereus ‘Pinky’.  He’s a hybrid, and is doing very well in my front flowerbed.  He even put out a bud.  I can’t wait to see what his flowers look like!

Opuntia basilaris v. aurea made it through the winter, and is trying to grow a LOT of new ears:

The new-ish trees in our yard (4 yellow buckeyes and 2 horse chestnuts) are not doing as well as I had hoped.  This was a long, COLD winter, and they had only been in the ground for one year prior.  So far, only 2 yellow buckeyes have leaves, and neither of the horse chestnuts do.  Here is one of the yellow buckeyes.

Thanks for looking at my flowers!