Gorgeous! Thanks for the art show! Your place looks very peaceful.

EXCELLENT shots, Mara! Thanks for sharing your morning view with us! =) Nice way to wake up!

Beautiful photos Mara. Your garden looks lovely.

Beautiful...what a way to start the day :-)

Yay! So beautiful! I hope the stapleia flower is going to be gorgeous! Lucky you, you got rain ... all i got was humidity and sadness, while palm spring and mt. San jacinto got rain, thunder and lightning ... i sat outside watching the hints of lightning in the mountains at midnight wishing it was here ... we didnt even get rain so i didnt get to wake up to water covered succulents ( ._.)

Yes as soon as the sun popped out,and dried up the dew , it popped out too. We had a night of several storms with lightening all around us but stars above and then rain and then stars and lightening. Today has been sunshine lightening and constant rumbling a cloudburdt and then sunshine and then a repeat. What a diference a year makes. We run out of water last year and were in the midst of 70 days above 100 and 5" of rain in 12 months. Our high was 89F not 105F.I have been working in my shop with all my doors open listening to all the deep rumblings, loving it.

here is a picture of the stapeliad and it played off the aloe's form just as I planned. They are such cool flowers.

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Very pretty! Hope you enjoy the smell! I had a little scitula bloom today! Its so cute and tiny ! My gigantea is yet to bloom

It was outdoors and I do not find the smell too bad. The smell of the Hoodia is MUCH more redolent. I got my husband to get on his knees to smell it. I am so mean. He looked at the Stapeliad and the flies circling and asked me if he had to smell this one too.

Some lovely pix there. Love the little aloe(?) next to the Stap. blossum.

That is a Aloe hemmengii

The moisture was nice, but, the play of it and the morning light was really beautiful.

Nice captures!

Thanks for sharing.

Thank you RC. I haven't seen you around the TX gallery form lately. I do miss your shots. Have you been traveling??

wantonamara, those photos are the first time I've enjoyed rain for a long time - we've had too much of it this year. In the picture of the round tub, right in front of the glass table (I think it's a table) I am wondering what is the tall cactus with the white streaks. It's the picture right before the garden landscape one, and just after the aloes.

That is Opuntia monocantha variegata also known as Joseph's Coat. As you see, I am from Texas and rain is SO appreciated after last year. I thought we were slipping back into extreme drought before this round came through. My rain tanks are full. We are still in drought just not extreme drought.

Opuntia monocantha variegata monstrose*

Beautiful photos! What a way to start the day!

Thanks very much for the name. My son just got a little plant of that. I can see it gets a lot bigger.

Really gorgeous. Thanks for sharing.