Today I’m featuring portraits of pink flowers in my Bend, Oregon yard. All of these plants are drought tolerant, once established.
The first photo is an ice plant. This groundcover has cheerful starburst flowers and succulent leaves. The leaves turn a bronze color in winter. We had an escapee take root in another part of our yard and it survived without watering.
The second plant is a Woods’ rose. This native 2-5 foot tall shrub attracts bees, butterflies, and birds. Red rose hips develop once the flowers lose their petals.
The third plant is a hollyhocks. This tall perennial needs more water at first than others on this post, but once established it’s fairly drought tolerant. They grow to a height of over three feet and make a bold statement in the garden.
The fourth picture is of a dwarf monkeyflower. They grow up to 4 inches in height and most of that height is in the flower. This native plant grows wild in the High Desert habitat on our property. The plants pictured are about two inches tall.
The fifth plant pictured is a cholla cactus. They produce a big crop of flowers in early summer, followed by yellowish fruit. As I have mentioned before, I have cultivated them by placing a single stem on the ground.
The sixth photo shows a tufted evening primrose. As its name implies, it blooms at night and closes up during the day. This is one of my favorite native flowering plants, but unfortunately the deer like it too. We have to regularly spray them with deer repellant.
When looking for photos for the Sunday Stills Photo Challenge this week that included the color pink, I discovered I had more pink flowers in my yard than I thought. A happy discovery!
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Oh my, Siobhan, what lovely pink flowers! How nice to discover there were more around you, yay! No pink flowers growing wild over here, but the purple lupine are everywhere. I remember ice plant growing along the freeways in San Diego. Very hardy plant. I'm happy you are sharing for Sunday Stills today!
Thanks, Terri! I love lupine plants. I can't imagine ice plants growing along the freeways! :D
great selection of pink and the flowers are so uplifting
Thanks! I went to a plant sale this morning so there will be more pretty flower photos in the future. :)
oh right on!
Beautiful
Thanks, Kristie!
The ice plant's flowers are stunning with its color and so many narrow petals!
The Wood's rose is similar to the dog roses (rosa canina) that grow wild in the forest here, except the petals on your Wood's rose look longer, less rounded. I love the local dog roses; I can smell them as I approach when they're blooming, always reminding me of Oil of Olay face lotion :-) And my dogs like eating the rose hips in the fall.
Gorgeous photos!
The ice plants are one of my favorite groundcovers. The flowers last a long time.
I've never heard of dog roses. I like the name! I didn't know dogs ate rose hips. Mine prefer our raspberries and strawberries. 🍓
First of all, our family LOVES Bend and Sunriver, and Central ORegon...lol. We live about 4 hours away in Washington (border of Portland), and that area is a regular vacation spot for us. We even honeymooned in Sunriver. Love the tufted primrose. So pretty.
Thanks, Kirstin! Thanks for visiting Bend & Sunriver. There's a lot to love around here. :)
I love seeing those tiny dwarf monkey flowers growing in the sandy soil of the pine forests by the lava field where I live. One note--Ice plants have become a terrible invader on the coastlines of southern Oregon and California, pushing out the native plants and impacting wildlife, so if there are coastal readers, please don't plant them there.
I look forward to seeing those tiny monkey flowers every year. You're the second reader to mention the ice plants spreading into areas they never existed before. I'm thankful mine are staying where they were planted, with the exception of one plant. 🙂 Thanks for the reminder to be careful where you plant them.