A couple weekends ago, I headed down to Orlando to visit my brother. Being about two hours south of me, they are somewhat warmer than we are, and they don’t very often get a hard freeze. This year was a pretty mild winter in Florida overall, so it wasn’t surprising that they hadn’t had any freezes this year. That put their spring wildflowers just a little ahead of ours, and the bright colors were popping out all along the roads.

When I arrived at my brother’s house, one of the first things I noticed was this beautiful hibiscus outside on his front porch. My sister-in-law has quite the green thumb and is always growing all sorts of flowers, but I just found the colors on this particular plant to be very striking. Hibiscus flowers are one of those delicate flowers that don’t last long, so I was fortunate to be able to photograph the flower in it’s prime. By the next morning the edges were slightly wilted and the pistil had gotten broken somehow.