Coreopsis flowering
On May 5th Eve and I drove up to the town of Cedar Park, which borders the northern reaches of Austin, to check out the new Whole Foods 365 that opened there a couple of weeks earlier. Lots of construction had gone on (and is still going on) in the area recently, and on a piece of disturbed ground we noticed a good stand of coreopsis flowering. The next morning I went back with my camera equipment to photograph the colony of Coreopsis tinctoria.
© 2017 Steven Schwartzman
Portraits of Wildflowers 
We see these beautiful flowers on beach sand dunes. Beautiful photo
norasphotos4u
June 10, 2017 at 5:28 AM
Do you know whether it’s the same species of coreopsis?
Steve Schwartzman
June 10, 2017 at 6:21 PM
Not sure but they look very similar (in my mind’s eye)
norasphotos4u
June 13, 2017 at 8:47 PM
Wow~ a new Whole Foods and a colony of coreopsis blooming! That is a lot to celebrate 🙂
melissabluefineart
June 10, 2017 at 7:11 AM
It’s one of the new smaller Whole Foods, dubbed Whole Foods 365, with supposedly lower prices—which we found on a few items, like papayas for a dollar each (not per pound). The coreopsis colony was free.
Steve Schwartzman
June 10, 2017 at 6:26 PM
And wonderful. How I wish we could get a whole foods store here.
melissabluefineart
June 11, 2017 at 7:11 AM
My impression is that it would take a substantially more populous area than the one you’re in to attract Whole Foods, or a wealthy and touristy small place like Sedona (as we discovered last fall). We visited the one here in Santa Fe two days ago.
Steve Schwartzman
June 11, 2017 at 6:39 PM
Sigh~ of course the politicians and the developers are doing their worst to make that happen.
By the way, I tried to comment on your germander photos but WordPress twice refused to allow it. I found the photos lovely, especially the second one. And isn’t it fun when you turn around and see a plant you’ve been looking for?
melissabluefineart
June 13, 2017 at 7:58 AM
It is fun, but Linda’s comment about Teucrium cubense got me to look up that species, and the pictures I found of it look a lot like the plant I discovered. I think I might have been mistaken in my identification because I didn’t know a third species of Teucrium grows in my area. Either way, the plant is new to me.
Steve Schwartzman
June 13, 2017 at 8:56 AM
It is a complicated world, isn’t it? Botanically and technically. Perseverance wins the day though.
melissabluefineart
June 15, 2017 at 7:00 PM
Chance plays a part, too.
Steve Schwartzman
June 15, 2017 at 7:10 PM
A blogger I know ran into a problem posting on other WordPress blogs. He was so discouraged that he stopped posting on his own blog for a while. Obviously you were able to post now, and that’s good news.
Steve Schwartzman
June 13, 2017 at 10:02 PM
It was well worth a return trip. Beautiful and abundant.
Dianne
June 10, 2017 at 7:45 AM
It definitely was worth the return. The most abundant coreopsis colony I ever saw was in 2010:
https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2011/07/26/auld-lang-syne/
Steve Schwartzman
June 10, 2017 at 6:35 PM
My first thought was of the Galveston cemeteries. They bloomed beautifully this year, too, and it was hard to say which was more lovely: the coreopsis or the gaillardia. Photos like this are so cheerful; they always make me smile.
shoreacres
June 10, 2017 at 2:54 PM
Yes, the Galveston cemeteries were wonderful two years ago. I’m glad to hear they matched that performance in 2017, and added equally good Indian blankets.
Steve Schwartzman
June 10, 2017 at 6:38 PM
Love Coreopsis tinctoria – I’ve been thinking of adding it to this year’s garden, your photo is swaying me 🙂
composerinthegarden
June 10, 2017 at 3:17 PM
I can picture you swaying. Might that back-and-forth suggest a piece of music to you?
Steve Schwartzman
June 10, 2017 at 6:39 PM
Always, Steve. Being in the garden is like being in the middle of music that has taken on physical form. Hence the swaying 🙂
composerinthegarden
June 11, 2017 at 5:02 AM
Then music is motion. A good concept.
Steve Schwartzman
June 11, 2017 at 6:34 PM
Loveliest pic; kudos!
Robert Cox
June 10, 2017 at 11:51 PM
Thanks, Robert. Glad you liked it.
Steve Schwartzman
June 11, 2017 at 12:18 AM
Scrolling through the comments I saw ‘Papayas for a dollar each.’ — that’s not bad.. They’re usually two for a dollar here, but they grow like weeds in some areas.. Grapefruit right now are about ten for a dollar.. now that’s a nice deal!
Playamart - Zeebra Designs
June 12, 2017 at 1:18 AM
Eve has often compared the prices of tropical fruits in American supermarkets with the much lower prices of those fruits in her home country of the Philippines. I’m not surprised to see it’s the same for you in Ecuador. The sale price of the papayas in Whole Foods that day was maybe one-third of the usual price, so we bought a bunch. And isn’t it strange—but convenient for you as an American—that Ecuador has adopted the U.S. dollar as its currency?
Steve Schwartzman
June 12, 2017 at 7:47 AM
Yes, it certainly makes it easy to compute the value of anything.. except for the time I returned to Jama, looked at limons for sale and asked ‘cuanto cuesta?’ and he said, “Veinte para cincuenta…”
I was totally lost as if he were speaking in a third language.. and then ‘…cuarenta para un dollar…’ How can one not buy a dollar’s worth?!!!
Of course we made lots of lemonade!
Playamart - Zeebra Designs
June 12, 2017 at 10:17 AM
In the process of making mucha limonada you’ve shown the mathematical equation 20/50 = 40/100. Too bad we can’t get 40 lemons for a dollar over here.
Steve Schwartzman
June 12, 2017 at 4:54 PM
Si.. and ten ‘maracuya’ for one dollar … that’s a good price til one buys them from a truck for twenty for one dollar!
Playamart - Zeebra Designs
June 13, 2017 at 9:53 AM
I had to look up maracuyá to find out that it’s passion fruit. Even the ‘expensive’ price you mentioned would be a bargain here. On the other hand, when I went to the Philippines for the second time, I had a request to bring apples, which can’t easily be grown in a tropical country and are therefore expensive there.
Steve Schwartzman
June 13, 2017 at 10:17 AM
Si; apples are imported from Chile here, but it’s strange to see some flowers thriving here that I associated with a change of seasons… like azaleas and magnolias and shasta daisies… thriving in climate zones around 5,000 feet or higher….
Playamart - Zeebra Designs
June 13, 2017 at 10:22 AM
I think you’ve hit it: altitude. When we drove from Albuquerque up to the top of Sandia Peak late yesterday afternoon, the temperature dropped 23°.
Steve Schwartzman
June 13, 2017 at 10:12 PM
Not sure if you’ve posted today – or yesterday – but nothing’s in yahoo mail or the reader…
Playamart - Zeebra Designs
June 13, 2017 at 10:24 AM
I’ve been posting every other day recently. The most recent was on June 12
https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com/2017/06/12/finally/
and there’ll be another one tomorrow, June 14. I’m sorry you’ve been having trouble. One workaround is to come directly to
https://portraitsofwildflowers.wordpress.com
every few days to see the latest posts.
Steve Schwartzman
June 13, 2017 at 10:18 PM