A jolt of red and yellow

How’s this for a jolt of red and yellow today? The flowers are firewheels, Gaillardia pulchella, that I photographed in a planted wildflower strip along Bluegrass Dr. in my Great Hills neighborhood on April 28th. Notice—how could you not?—the spider-folded rays.

This picture is from more than five weeks ago and some firewheels have gone to seed now, but there are still plenty of freshly flowering ones in central Texas. In fact when I drove past this colony two days ago there were just as many firewheels (and other wildflowers) as before, so I stopped to do some more photographing. While I was working a man came walking toward me and introduced himself as Dave. I asked him if he’s the person who maintains the roadside colony and he said he is. He added that seeing someone stop to photograph his handiwork made his day, and now that all of you are seeing a piece of this colony his day will be made many times over.

© 2014 Steven Schwartzman