Flowers

We have this stunning orange flowered plant right next to our front steps up to the porch. I had no idea what they are, but they look really great as a pop of color. There is actually another plant exactly like it on the other side of the street near the wall that defines the complex’s entrance.

We were sitting on our front porch the other day taking in the nice spring weather when a car that was leaving the complex stopped right across the street. The passenger got out of the car and walked over towards us and asked, “What kind of plant is that?” I replied, “I have no idea, but you might ask our neighbor across the street. She is outside working in her really nice garden right now.”

As he headed over there the woman driving said, “We are out looking for nice flowering plants because we lost a bunch in the ice storm we had.” I told her we did lose a few plants too. “You could always take a picture and Google it.” Turns out the gardening neighbor didn’t know what it was either, so I said, “Let me look it up.” I snapped a photo and image searched it. “Google says it is an azalea, but it doesn’t look like one to me.” Off they drove.

I was basing my negative on the azaleas we had in our yard back in Aiken, my memories of visiting Augusta National and from TV watching the Masters. But later that day I googled, “masters azaleas” and it turns out I was wrong, that flowering bush is in fact an azalea, but it is a mountain azalea which is different from the domesticated ones in our South Carolina yard. Here is a picture that I found on the Golfweek website taken by Michael Madrid of the USA TODAY Network.