Oh that this were our yard/garden. It isn't, but if my gardening skills were better, I guess it could be. Oh, and if the temperatures never exceeded 75 or 80 degrees, that would be helpful as well. This lovely bed of flowering ground covers was photographed a couple weeks ago when I was in Palm Springs. I am relatively certain that these annuals are not summer hardy on the middle of the desert, but during their tepid winter season, they do very nicely! Last night, we experienced the hardest freeze in the area of the last four years or so. One more overnight with temperatures below freezing, and the weekend is supposed to bring temperatures in the low 80s and the possibility of rain. I will be better able to report on the state of the local flora over the weekend, but it looks like what I would have expected to be fragile have weathered the storm.Popinjay -- Noun: a strutting supercilious person. "There was a tiny popinjay of a man with a Windsor know and a pink tie." Jon Robin Baitz, quoted in Vanity Fair, January 21, 2017
Did You Know? Popinjays and parrots are birds of a feather. Popinjay, from the Middle French word papegai, is the original name for a parrot in English. (The French word in turn came from the Arabic word for the bird, babgha. Parrot, which English speakers adopted later, probably comes from the Middle French perroquet.) In the days of Middle English, parrots were rare and exotic, and it was quite a compliment to be called popinjay after such a beautiful bird. But by the 1500s, parrots had become more commonplace, and their gaudy plumage and vulgar mimicry helped popinjay develop the pejorative sense we use today.
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