Dried hydrangeas

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My daughter let me cut the last three flowers on her Asian hydrangea bush last October (see post here). They lasted a long time in a vase on the windowsill in my office. About the time I headed to Texas in mid-November, I put the flowers into separate vases with no water to enable the flowers to dry.

When I returned home, the flowers were nicely dried with most of the petals still blue! I took some high key images of the best one – where the petals stayed relatively flat rather than wilting/curling.

This is a great way to prolong the flowers of fall into winter. I wonder how long the color will last….

Zooming – October 2023

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The optics of my camera allow me to capture images that are better than I can see with my eyes – flowers, insects, birds, cave formations and seed pods that fill the frame…driftwood isolated from the noise of other things around it….sculpture, glass, and fall gourds specially arranged….sunrises and a sunset….the beauty of a fall morning. Every picture is a memory moment – a visual that also serves as a reminder of a place and mood and relationship with the people that experienced it with me. The places were mostly close to home in southwest Missouri (art museum, meadow, caverns) but also St. Louis and along the route between home and Carrollton TX.

Hydrangea Flowers and Magnolia Pods

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It won’t be long before we have afternoons blowing/raking/mulching leaves in my daughter’s yard…but until then I am enjoying the end of her summer yard when I visit there. The seed pods of the Southern Magnolia are full of red seeds right now. They always remind me of red M&Ms! The pods will eventually become a nuisance on the ground…but on the tree they are interesting – colorful, splitting to allow the seeds to escape- these are prehistoric flowering trees with seed pods that look very much like cones.

She encouraged me to cut the flowers from her Asian hydrangea since temperatures into the 30s were being forecast. There were 3 flower clusters (others too…but they were not mature enough to open if cut). I trimmed the lower leaves off right after I cut them and put the flowers in a large vase as soon as I got home. They’ve been on my office windowsill within line of sight from where I sit at my computer since then.

The flowers last for a long time – which gave me several opportunities to do some artsy photography with them over the past few days. What’s not to like with the gentle pink and blue…bright green! I managed some almost high key images….with smudges of color and screen grid in the background.  It was a good ‘rainy day’ activity.

Carrollton Yard – August 2023

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Weeks of 100+ degree temperatures in Carrollton, TX were hard on the yard/garden. Frequent watering helped. Still - the hydrangea that is usually very lush green and blooming is drying out – hopefully it will come back from the roots next year.

There is still a lot of green in the garden areas of the yard. Crape Myrtles seem to thrive in the high heat if they get enough water.

The naked lady lilies are almost done for the season. My favorite picture of the morning was one of the last flowers – full of water droplets from the sprinklers.

There is a lot of seed production too. The red yuccas look as they always do but other plants seem to have more than the usual seeds…maybe a good strategy to survive to grow another year.

There was a large spider in the flower bed near the front door – a female Argiope aurantia (yellow garden spider). The first time I saw it, all was quiet on the web.

The next day, the spider was feeding on something! There were a few droplets of water from the sprinklers too. The web seemed to be very sturdy – and built in a good place.

Overall, attention to watering (sprinkler system and supplement in key areas) has sustained the yard. Many in the neighborhood look thoroughly dry…and dying. If this is what the summers will be like in the area from now on – then landscaping will need to change significantly.

Carrollton Yard – July 2023

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The temperatures were over 100 every day I was in Carrollton, TX in July; I spent most of my time in places with air conditioning. It was in the 80s when I ventured out not that long after sunrise…getting a bit of yard photography done before it got too hot. The naked lady lilies (pink) were the most spectacular flowers of July and my mother had brought some of them indoors to enjoy. There were plenty left amongst the greenery from cosmos (orange)…Crape Myrtle and Queen Anne’s Lace as back drop. The elderly mulberry trees are still healthy enough to sprout new leaves along their trunks. The toy truck, rooster, copper fountain, tractor windmill, and glass sphere are nestled among the plants. The red yucca is thriving. Many plants are growing seeds/pods already.

In the distance – the Carrollton water tower and the sun just above the horizon could be seen through the trees.

There is a sprinkler system that runs twice a week in the early morning….but my sister and father are supplementing that watering for the newer plants. There hasn’t been rain recently and the high temperatures are taking a toll. The hydrangea has not produced flowers at all this year and looks forlorn even with a lot of watering.

My Favorite Photographs of 2021

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It was a challenge to pick one picture from each month of 2021 to feature in this post….but a worthwhile exercise. I did not use consistent criteria for my choices, so these images are special for a variety of reasons.

January for witnessing interesting bird behavior – A bluebird on our deck railing looking up at our bird feeder full of other members of the flock…waiting a turn!

February for learning to make high key images – A high key image of a lily….the flower purchased at the grocery store. I had just watched a video about high key photography and was thrilled to have some easy successes.

March for beauty old and new – The crocus were out at Brookside Gardens but I found the remnants of last seasons flowers more interesting.

April for a bird trusting that I wasn’t a threat– A bird looking rather assertive. I had paused its search for food in the leaves to make sure I wasn’t a threat; evidently I wasn’t because it went back to its search a few seconds later.

May for memorializing a bird – A juvenile little blue heron in the cattail leaves at Josey Ranch in Carrollton TX. It had a broken wing so I think of this image as a monument to its short life.

June for something that only happens every 17 years – The periodic cicadas seemed to be thick everywhere – even our yard. This one was under our red maple.

July for interconnection in nature– Back in Texas…am insect on a cosmos flower on a cool morning.

August for the fragile beauty of a new butterfly – A monarch butterfly seconds after it emerged from its chrysalis is our front flower bed.

September for capturing a small thing, seeing it better than I could with my eyes – Some birds nest fungus in the mulch at Howard County Conservancy. I was thrilled that I had my gear (phone, clip on macro, clicker) even though I hadn’t planned to do any macro photography!

October for being in a river – More macro photography – this time the wing of an insect on a rock just above the water line….photographed on a volunteer gig before the students arrive.

November for the colors of the flower – Another view of a cosmos flower. I like it when the light is such that a black background is possible.

December the new orb sculpture at Brookside – A surprise (for me) at Brookside – I hadn’t seen this sculpture before…and I also enjoyed the holiday lights (missed them last year).

Zooming – November 2021

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Three locations for my zoomed image collection this month: Maryland (home), Texas (Carrollton), Missouri (Springfield). Enjoy the slideshow of the whole group then look below for thumbnails by location!

Maryland

Texas

Missouri

Fall in Springfield, MO

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I arrived in Springfield when the squirrels were eating the jack-o-lanterns

And many trees had just dropped their leaves. At my daughter’s house, the maple and oak leaves collected in drifts on the driveway/patio, a mixture of leaves were staying where they fell on the grass (needing to be raked or mowed soon), and redbud leaves lined the stone walk at the side of the house.

We spent an hour vacuuming up leaves on the hard surfaces while I was there and put the shredded leaves in beds around the yard. I’m not sure all the leaves will be so easily dealt with although many can be mowed into the yard.

My favorite plants retaining their leaves were the magnolia (with some pods still holding their red seeds) and the oak leaf hydrangea with its drying flowers and red leaves. I think the oak leaf hydrangea moves to the top of my list for bushes I’d like to plant at my house!

The hosta’s are responding to cool temperatures with a yellowing of their leaves – a last bit of beauty from the plants before winter.

After we were done with our yard work, we cut some of the last Asian hydrangea flowers to take inside…maybe they will retain some of their color as they dry out.

Overall – it was a beautiful day in Springfield before I continued toward home.

Texas Macro

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I enjoyed two sessions of macro photography with my phone and clip on lens in the Carrollton, Texas. Getting very close to the vegetation with a magnifying lens provides a different perspective of the plants. Can you find the red yucca pod, the cosmos flowers, the rabbits ear leaf, the underside of a fern, hydrangea leaf, black seeds of the chives, cone flower seed pod and French flower? There is an occasional insect. Each image can be enlarged by clicking on it to pop up a larger version.

This is probably the last hurrah for summer type macro images. The subjects will shift to leaf color transitions and snowflakes …or indoors with store bought flowers for the holidays or holiday decorations.

Carrollton Yard – July 2021

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The back yard in Carrollton, Texas is a sunnier space that when I was here in May (a big tree had to be cut down). And it is summer. There are some cannas that are some of the tallest I’ve seen.

The hydrangeas are waning…the Queen Anne’s Lace is not as abundant as earlier…there are some round yellow-orange blobs of fungus in the shredded wood left from the big tree…they are almost the same color as the cosmos that are blooming in the newly sunny patch…a few Naked Lady Lilies and other shade loving plants are under the pecan tree which is growing rapidly now that the old mulberry is not overhead.

There are metal sculptures that I always notice among the plants – always there but looking different because of the changes of the plants over the season.

In the front yard, the ferns have spores forming on the underside of the fronds and there is only one daisy left.

The red yucca has seed pods developing among its flowers.

In a patch of dirt where some plant has died back, I found an large,empty snail shell…even though haven’t seen a snail in the yard before!

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Overall – the garden in Carrollton has changed quite a lot since May. Having the big tree gone has changed things more than the usual cycle…this next year will be one of transition for the corner of the yard that was very shady and is now full of sun.

Springfield Yard and Xeriscape Garden

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Last time I was in Springfield, the priority was getting my daughter moved into a new house – exhausting work. This time I am savoring the yard. I walked around several times….marveling at how beautiful it is, noting a few things that need to be done but nothing critical. It is relatively low maintenance. I am starting to think about the various areas as mini gardens.

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The Driveway Garden has two hollies flanking the extra parking area – a male and female. The female tree is full of green berries which will be red by winter…pretty and food for birds as well.

The Back Garden has a dogwood that may be problematic (some dead branches and overall not looking healthy) but underneath the Queen Anne’s Lace is blooming and some other plants (that will also provide food for birds. I’ve been watching a small rabbit nibbling on the plants around the brick patio every morning when I nibble my dark chocolate in the garden room. The hosta plants have already finished blooming. There are some legume type plants that are blooming behind some evergreens and a stand of poke weed that will have purple berries in the fall. There is a wood hydrangea that still has dried flowers from last year along with light grene flower clusters on the ends of this year’s growth. Overall – a lot of shrubs, trees and perennials…very little grass.

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The Side Garden has evergreens on one side of the stone walk and ferns on the other. I might move one of the yard chairs to this always shady area.

The Magnolia Garden is under a huge magnolia tree. There was some damage to the leaves from the extreme cold from last winter that I noticed last time I was here but those leaves were dropped and the tree looks wonderfully lush at this point - full of shining green leaves, developing seed pods and waning flowers. There are a few ferns and hosta under the tree. My daughter cleared away the thick layer of magnolia leaves and is planning to encourage (or plant) more of those types of plants under the tree.

The Front Garden is dominated by some big trees. The river birch and oak are the largest. The oak was probably planted when the house was built in the 1950s. Many other houses in the neighborhood have a large oak in the front.

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There is also an oak leaf hydrangea between the house and the big trees that is blooming; it’s a great shade loving plant!

We took a walk in the neighborhood to a city park that includes a Xeriscape Garden maintained by volunteers. Kudos to the people that do the work there! It is a mini-botanical garden. The arum seed clusters are attention getting! The variety of plants there would make it worth visiting any time except (maybe) the winter. I was pleased to see that goldenrod was included. There was also some sculpture among the plantings.

Overall – the gardens of the yard and the nearby Xeriscape Garden are something to look forward to see during future visits.

Springfield Botanical Garden – Part 1

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This was my second visit to the Springfield Botanical Garden….and we parked in a different place…saw the garden in a different order than before. It’s a large enough place that I didn’t see the whole thing either time.  The morning was still cool and there were not many people around when we first got there. We started out near the flowering shrubs, white garden and mosaic. I’m paying more attention to native plants these days and the gardens seems to be skewing in that direction as well. There were lots of showy clumps of cone flowers and wood hydrangea. There didn’t seem to be as many butterflies around as were there during my previous visit in July 2019.

We spent more time walking through the hosta garden….very shady with water features….the garden furniture was too wet to enjoy. It’s probably the most pleasant garden area during the hottest hours of summer days!

We went in one entrance and out another…walking toward other gardens via the South Creek Greenway Trail. Those gardens are the topic of in tomorrow’s post.

Brookside Gardens – Part 2

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Continuing the images from Brookside Gardens in June…

The oak leaf hydrangea is in bloom this time of year. My daughter told me recently that the one in their yard (in Missouri) is blooming profusely and has a pleasant fragrance.

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There are lots of other things in bloom at Brookside – including some late blooming azaleas and the beginning of the milkweed bloom. The rose garden was taped off while we were there since it had been sprayed earlier that morning. I took one zoomed picture of a rose. The whole rose garden seemed to be full of flowers.

There are pyramids of art in the garden. I enjoyed the mosaics on the “El Salvador Memory” pyramid that was located near the visitor center.

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Early morning is my favorite time to walk in summer gardens and natural areas….before the heat of the day. Being outdoors makes for a good start for everything else the day brings.  

Springfield, Missouri Yard

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My daughter and son-in-law recently bought and moved to their first house…one with a beautiful yard. At first, I enjoyed the yard from the sunroom in the early morning before the moving activities began. All the windows are screened so the pictures are not great --- I was thrilled to see the hummingbird (probably a ruby-throated) and a woodpecker (probably a downy). It appeared that a pair of cardinals were nesting in a cedar. There were squirrels and bunnies around as well. Later the pea plants my son-in-law is growing for a project were moved from their rental house and were put on the brick patio where they would get some sun for part of the day.

I walked around the yard on a subsequent day and took pictures that I could label with the trees/scrubs I could easily identify…and then more detailed pictures. The backyard has a decorated gate…and lots of great plantings. We learned from a neighbor that the owner before last was a Master Gardener…and many of the plantings from that time have endured! The dogwood was already growing seeds. There were swamp irises still blooming and some other plants with lots of buds that I wasn’t sure what they are, but I anticipate some native perennials that will be good for pollinators. The holly was blooming. There are a lot of evergreens and ferns in the space between the house and the neighboring house. I’ll document the evergreens there during a winter visit.

The side and front yard have the largest trees: Southern Magnolia, Oak, and River Birch. The magnolia was shedding more leaves than usual after some extreme cold last winter…but it had lots of buds and is starting to bloom. The maples and redbuds (in back and front) are smaller; all of them have produced many seeds this year. There are two types of native hydrangeas (wood in the back and oak leaf in the front).

Even the edges of the driveway are scenic. There are brick walkways in every direction from the drive into the yard; they are littered with magnolia leaves. Even the water spigot is special. Some miniature roses were just starting to bloom in the bed between the garden room and the driveway as they moved into the house…with lots of buds.

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The house is great…the yard is amazing. What a wonderful home!

Zooming – March 2021

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The sunny March days have been so pleasant – great times to be outdoors and photographing what I see. I’ve been venturing out from home a bit more too – Brookside Gardens, Howard County Conservancy’s Mt Pleasant, and Centennial Park. There are still zoomed images taken through my office window (birds and the moon framed by tree branches); the sunrise and daffodils are from my house as well. Overall - this is just the beginning of the season for spring flowers. Can you find:

  • Skunk cabbage (Mt Pleasant)

  • Mourning Dove (my house)

  • Shelf fungus (2 of them - Mt Pleasant and my house)

  • Witch Hazel (Brookside)

  • Gingko tree trunk and branches (Centennial)

  • Blue jays (my house)

  • Dried hydrangea flowers (Brookside)

Enjoy the slideshow for March 2021!

Getting outdoors on these spring days is a mood boosting activity as well as good exercise. I’ve gotten comfortable enough wearing a mask that I just keep it on if I’ve in a place where I might encounter someone else on the trail. I enjoy it in the moment and then again when I view the images on my bigger screen monitor…and formulate the blog post. The activity is a bright core with tendrils of benefit that are longer lasting.

Mini Road Trip: Brookside Gardens – Part 1

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The mini road trip to Brookside Gardens last week was my first time back to the gardens in over a year. It was in the low 50s, sunny and breezy – I typical early March day for our area of Maryland. The outing started out with a group of five robins looking for worms in our front yard as I drove away for the house – a great indicator of early spring. There were not as many people at Brookside as there had been at Centennial Park and almost everyone was masked and maintaining distance; it was a more comfortable situation…and I took so many pictures that there will be a second post about the mini road trip tomorrow.

On the walk from the parking lot toward the visitor’s center, there was a bird’s nest from last season in one of the young trees. I’ll see the spring action at Brookside this year that I completely missed in 2020!

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It’s still early in the season – but there are some flowers to photograph in the gardens already.

There are plants that stay green through the winter too. I always enjoy the profuse stand of horsetails planted in one of the beds at the visitor center.

The tall sycamore uphill from the conservatory has been cut to a tall stump. It had struggled in recent years with some the higher branches being leafless/dead. The stump has been fitted with a mask and googly eyes!

There was another tree I noticed had been cut down too! I’m glad they left the roots and short stump…wonder what will come up around it in the bed.

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The hydrangea flowers from last season were prevalent….and seem to always draw my attention;  their flowers are so large and they last, in dried form, through the winter. Maybe I’ll plant some native hydrangeas at my house…although the deer that come through our yard would gobble them up if they were not protected with fencing.

Tomorrow I’ll post about the witch hazels blooming at Brookside!

Zooming – December 2019

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December was not a big month for photography. I did enjoy birds and wildlife…the decorations too…but I found myself in observational mode rather than trying to take photographs. I did quite a lot of volunteer work early in the month, and there never is time for very much time for photography when I’m paying rapt attention to people during a volunteer gig.

Enjoy the slide show for December 2019!

Happy New Year 2020!

Brookside Gardens Model Trains (continued)

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The Brookside Gardens G-scale model trains exhibit’s last day is January 1. I’ve been volunteering as a conservatory docent since just after Thanksgiving – posting about my earlier shifts back on December 12. The shifts since then have been just as enjoyable at the first 4. Each one is a little different and I try to take a few pictures to document the differences.

The 5th shift was on a very cold afternoon with light sleet falling. Visitors to the exhibit were light so I had plenty of time to take some plant pictures in the other half of the conservatory and

The Ferris wheel and merry-go-round in the trolley track layout.

On the center track, Thomas and James were pulling trains. Emily was on a side track. The hard part of the shift was getting home; the roads had been treated and were not slippery…it was rush hour traffic. It took me more than double the normal time to get home. Aargh!

The 6th sift had my favorite engine of the season: one that smoked! The very coordinated volunteer from the train club that owned the train could use an eye dropper to add more oil to the smokestack (to make the smoke) while the train was moving!

Before the 7th shift, it took a series of ‘new leaves/fronds’ picture in the conservatory…and pink flowers to add some color.

Inside the exhibit – there was a Santa pumper added and Thomas was pulling a train. Both are favorites of the children,

The 8th shift was cold but I quickly took a picture of a dried hydrangea flower. I like the ‘lace’ of the weathering petals.

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Indoors there were poinsettias and orchids.

A Christmas train was the highlight of the exhibit for that shift.

I also noticed the hopscotch that is part of the Brookside Gardens trolley for the first time.

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The 9th shift included a festive train with lots of figures – including the Beetles –

And a more serious looking freight train.

I have one more shift to go – on the very last day of the exhibit!

Carrollton Garden

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I was working on a blog post last week and noticed a butterfly in the garden. I didn’t get outside fast enough to get a picture of it but is did notice that there were Cosmos still blooming that might provide some food for butterflies.

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There was also some color left from summer: cockscomb (one being held by a dragon ornament in the garden)

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And hydrangea.

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The next morning I photographed another part of the yard. The red yucca seed pods are splitting. I hadn’t noticed how charred their seeds look when I’d photographed them on previous visits.

There is a mound of mums near a rock in the garden – a patch of orange on a cloudy morning.

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