WINTER ALOES - THE CONTESTS OF PETALS - FLOWERS
Winter. I love this beautiful time of year. Here in the South African countryside the mountainsides are now a fiery orange. The aloes are blooming as far as the eye can see. It adds a vibrance to the otherwise dreary winter landscape.
Apart from being beautiful aloes have incredible healing properties. Their leaves are a powerhouse. The clear but bitter gel used for any number of remedies from stomach complaints to wounds and even as an anti-parasitic.
These blooming aloes are my entry for this weeks #thecontestsofpetals. But it is not only the humans who benefit. The #petals of these semi-desert #flowers are life giving to butterflies and birds alike. What indigenous flowers are blooming in your neck of the woods? And what animal life do they sustain?
What a gorgeous post with beautiful colours. The frost kills our orange aloe flowers everytime.. they are just about to flower which to me means its frost time. Is that a silvereye? We get them here too!!!
Yes it is! The hummingbirds love the aloes but they are too flighty for my camera. We also get frost but usually just at the end of their flowering. Probably next month.
oh man @buckaroo those are fantastic photos!
how cold does your winters get and do you get snow?
We have snow on the mountains and some winters black frost.
black frost? I've never heard of that.
Beautiful pics and I love your little blog together with it :)
Well, at least you caught that one hummingbird. Great job!
Thanks @therneau
Lovely my child.
I love the little Glasseye, they are SO scarce I don't think I have seen more than one or two in the last five or six years! But as a boy they were as plentiful as mossies