Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Night Blooming Cactus

 A few years ago we removed the grass in our front and back yards.  The front looked like this before the removal
and this after the removal.
Hubby spent the better part of the next two years planting with drought tolerant plants, both California 
native types and succulents.  It now looks like this.
   I'm so glad he did this.
We are in a severe drought in California.  If we have to ration water, there will be many very brown lawns around here. 
The blooms on the cactus below are so large and gorgeous.  You do have to go out at  night to see them  though.  I caught this one very early in the morning just before it closed.
I processed two versions - one cropped to a 
square and textured with Kim Klassen's Prague texture.  I then edited it in Photoshop and Topaz Restyle and Topaz Adjust.  This one is my entry for Kim's Texture Tuesday.  
The image below was processed in Photoshop using Kim Klassen's Cool  Grunge texture.  You can see 
the buds above the bloom.  They probably opened the next night or two.  Such a treat. 


“Texture

15 comments:

Leovi said...

Lovely flower, I like the colors!

Anonymous said...

lovely- I will have to see about getting this texture from Kim!

Sylvia said...

Gorgeous blooms on this cactus, Marilyn !
Lovely edits !
Have a nice day,
Sylvia

jacki long said...

Love your yards, Mike did such a great job with so many beautiful varieties. Your cacti blooms are wonderful! Bravo!

Barb said...

Hi Marilyn,
OMG, what a wonderful transformation, I know a lot of hard work and luv went into the final result! Luv the color of the cactus blossom. What a truly nice surprise discovering your recent message, truly appreciate you stopping by my blog. Ü
Yes we are still blessed to have all 4 of our "girls" with us. They are loving their new fenced in grassy area in our backyard and soaking up the sun.
Hugs,
Barb

Viv@Thoughts from the Desktop said...

What a wonderful garden such amazing plants...

Prairie Jill said...

I love what you did with your garden! So beautiful. And I love what you did with Kim's textures, too!

Donna Hopkins said...

Marilyn, This is my first visit to your blog, and I am so enjoying the view! I love your yard - and I agree it's much easier to work with nature rather than against. We live surrounded by old oak trees, which means it's hard to get grass to grow, and so we rely on many shade loving, drought tolerant plants. I LOVE your banner photos and arrangement. And today's pictures are so vibrant with great texture - beautiful! I'll spend some time looking through your older posts, too.

Beverly said...

Marilyn, I am a fan of planting native to the region and drought tolerant plans no matter what state. We have grass, but I would remove it and plant anything that would grow all by itself. Bravo to you and your husband for saving some water, and your plants are so happy and pretty! Love your photos and your work! Nice to see you at TT!

Chris-June said...

amazing cactus flowers!
hope you'll get rain soon.
thank you for visiting my blog.

pam said...

Gorgeous! Great choice of plants and I love how you processed it!

abrianna said...

I did not know that cactus flowers could get that big. It is beautiful.

libbyquilter said...

what a magnificent and magical flower~!
you did a great job photographing it as well as creating photo art.
i love what your husband did with your yard. it's so much more interesting than grass and so water smart which is becoming more and more important.
i hope to gradually change more of my grass into planting space and paths . . . would your hubby want to come and advise/help~!? :-D

:-)
libbyQ

Inspired By June said...

Your "lawn" is beautiful, Marilyn! Your hubby did a fabulous job! I enjoyed reading about your process with the sketch from your journal. I've just started playing with scanning some of my stuff in and manipulating it in PS. Thanks for commenting on my abstracts. I'm really have fun with those!

Unknown said...

Gorgeous yard! I sometimes get up early enough to capture photos of the same marvelous cactus bloom that you have. Love what you did with the image. Wish succulents did better here, most of them are too delicate for the brutal heat.