Flowers of the Azores

Although not indigenous, hydrangeas are much loved and border the fields along with ancient stone walls.  

It is very difficult for me not to write about the flowers we have encountered while in the Azores.  They are prolific, wild, colourful, tiny and huge - absolutely glorious and everywhere.  Unlike the bougainvillea that have dominated much of our previous stops, the plants that grow here love the temperate climate.  In the summer, when I would normally be trying to grow flowers on the Canadian Shield, I have instead loved hiking through fields of known and unknown wildflowers.

Morning glories are huge.

I am a person who has loved to dig around in the dirt, sweat buckets and attempt to create palettes with blossoms.  In my other life, it was my therapy.  And on Milly, there is no dirt - Peter is allergic to soil of any kind.  I now have an epiphyte hanging in a sea urchin shell which dangles and sways on our passages - without dirt! But it is green and has soothed my yen for gardening a bit.

Juniper bushes which I have pulled out by the dozen, are protected here.  Gin in a favourite alcohol and the juniper is called the Azores cedar - somehow much nicer.

But I miss growing things...so please indulge me and enjoy the pictures my photographer has patiently taken (his favourite photo subject as you have probably noticed is boats, particularly Milly).

Great bones with lovely colours.

Everywhere.

Cala lilies in front of a drying rack for corn.

Agapanthus, I think. Growing wild.

Sublime!

This juniper, I mean "cedar" was a tree!

Lantana grew wild all over the place in pink and pale yellow or in orange and mustard.  These were loving the soil in a crater.

A strange tree we had not seen before - fire tree, I think.

The lichen loves this wall in wet and wild Pico. 

An unknown...maybe fuchsia?

Wild roses and hydrangea.  It almost made me fall off the scooter getting a picture.

Zen wood.

Oh yes, and then there was the cheese...in huge rounds lining the shelves.  I liked that, too.

Sometimes it's about the background.

Wild yellow ginger, an invasive species, has an amazing yellow flower but it's roots are strangling the native plants.  It's everywhere and the botanists are worried.

In southern Santa Maria, the desert plants abound.

Can't get enough of that!