Showing posts with label flora. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flora. Show all posts

Monday, January 23, 2012

Winter macros - inside and outside...

On a particularly nasty day, I gave my new iPhone macro lens (part of an "Olloclip" set of three lenses for iPhone) a try and photographed an Alstroemeria blossom up close and personal.

Alstroemeria blossom close-up
A couple of days later, I ventured outdoors to capture some icy, snowy macro images in my garden since the snowy mix we'd had earlier in the week hadn't melted due to two days running of cold temperatures. Clockwise from top left below: Rosemary, Camellia in bud, Vinca covered with ice and snow and a faded Hydrangea blossom encased in an ice and snow mix.

collage of images as described
I'm posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and join the fun!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

A Mystery Flower from travels in northern Sweden - 2011

In the category of you can please some of the people some of the time but you cannot please all of the people all of the time... at least one of you expressed appreciation for my images being posted full size rather than the smaller size used for the previous post. And although I quite agree, I am going to continue posting smaller size because people using an iPad to view my images won't see the larger ones properly.

I appreciate the suggestions I've received about Google's blog code doing things automatically... but I hacked the template I'm using now when I first started writing my blogs because NONE of the templates worked to display the images 'out of the box' the way I wanted to display them. One of these days, I will investigate using a different blog template to see if I can resolve this dilemma. In the meantime, I'm happy to have worked out the code to allow you to click the smaller image to reveal the full size one!

TAG
This lovely little wildflower is one of many we saw in northern Sweden while hiking with our cousins near their home in Vägsele and again near their summer home in Tärnaby. I had written down the name, both common and Latin, but have no idea what happened to those notes. If any of you know what this is, please enlighten me. (Addendum: august2011 of August Break knew that Melampyrum pratense is commonly called Cow-wheat and kindly supplied the ID for me!) The tiny, tubular flowers are approximately .75 inches (20 cm) in length and the plant is low to the ground and grows in forests. (I cannot recall whether or not we also saw it growing in full sun.)

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come on over and check it out.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

Flora of Sweden Continued... 2011

NatureFootstep (visit his bird blog for some very nice images) commented on my previous post that he could not see complete images at the size I post them without expanding his browser size... for some time, it has bothered me that I don't know how to scale images properly for smaller screens and still give readers the ability to view the images in a larger size.

Between his comment and one posted by Vagabonde (a visit to her blog is a learning experience full of lovely images) on my vacation blog, I was inspired to try to figure out how to post smaller images... and to figure out how to include the code that would display the large size of an image by clicking on the smaller one posted here. Success! (I will not be going back and changing the code on every image prior to this post!)

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I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... make sure you stop by and check out the lovely macros... and join the fun! This collage represents three different types of flora seen while traveling in Sweden last month: mosses, lichens and other tiny forest plants, Northern Wolfsbane and a pine cone with just a few pine needles surrounding it.

I had asked last week for folks to let me know what they thought about the idea of combining my vacation blog (new post on Stockholm as of today) with this blog... results are mixed and I'm torn so will keep the blogs separate for now. I'll leave you for today with some information about Northern Wolfsbane (Aconitum lycoctonum, large image), a plant with which I was unfamiliar until seeing it in Sweden. It is a herbaceous perennial native to Europe and northern Asia that grows about 3 feet tall; all parts of the plant are poisonous.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Flora of Sweden from June, 2011...

wild geranium with bumblebee
Some plants we saw in Sweden I'd never seen before... but Wild Geranium grows in my own garden so this one was easily recognizable. The busy bee was a bonus.

tiny plants growing in the forest
Images of tiny mosses, lichens and succulents growing on the forest floor, seen while hiking near Vägsele, Sweden with cousins Sture and Inger.

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... stop by and check out the other entries.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Heath Spotted Orchid by any name is a tiny wonder... Sweden, 2011

TAG
This tiny orchid was blooming almost everywhere we hiked while in the north of Sweden near Tärnaby, Granås and Vägsele. I'm grateful to our cousin Sture's wife Inger who was a wealth of information about the native wildflowers. Her reference books came in handy for researching the scientific names and I came home with most of the flowers I'd photographed already identified.

This lovely flower is also known as Moorland Spotted Orchid and goes by the Swedish name "Jungfru Marie nycklar" which translates to Virgin Mary's hand. This specimen, Dactylorhiza maculata subspecies maculata, is one of many subspecies of this tiny orchid plant that grows about 50 cm high and blooms in June and July. It is a protected species in Sweden.

I have shown two images to demonstrate the difference between using the 18-200mm zoom lens alone (on the left) vs. using the same lens with addition of a Kenko 36mm extension tube. As you can see, carrying lightweight extension tubes allows one to get macro images without carrying a heavy macro lens. Using a true macro lens yields better quality images (based on comparisons done in my garden at home), but nothing beats carrying extension tubes for travel if one doesn't want to carry every lens in their arsenal!

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos later. I'm so far behind everywhere that I have no business doing so but I've missed visiting other's macro images while on travel in Sweden and Iceland and am just going to make time to visit some of you every day until I've made the rounds of blogs I follow (and/or reciprocate your comments) and can then start over again! :-)

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Lingonberry blossoms seen in Vägsele, Sweden... Summer, 2011...

Lingonberry blossoms
Lingonberry jam/jelly is something I remember from childhood as being typically Swedish. Our mother was born in the United States but her parents came to the US in the early 1900s and settled in Sheridan, Wyoming.

Although Mom spoke very little Swedish, she did know a lot about her Swedish heritage. These are Lingonberry blossoms... Lingonberry grows wild all over the hills and fields around Vägsele which is the area where her parents (my grandparents) were born and spent their younger years before emigrating to America. I've been posting a little bit about our travels to my vacation blog but am finding it takes a long time to prepare posts between having unreliable Internet access and using an iPad to prepare the posts!

For those who might want to know, this was taken with a Nikon D90 fitted with a 32mm extension tube and a Nikon 18-200mm lens. Using the extension tube with my 'all purpose travel lens' gives me macro lens capability without having to carry the macro lens. :-)

UPDATE on July 11, 2011: I've been back from my Sweden/Iceland trip for almost a week now and am finally feeling somewhat human. Recovery from jet lag is harder the older I get! Meantime, I posted this image 12 days ago thinking I'd post to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos while I was away but that didn't happen. So I'm finally sharing it today! Head on over and check out the other posts.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Fun with a macro lens... not just for extreme close-ups!

collage of flowers and geese
This collage is another set of images from the macro workshop at Green Springs Garden (mentioned in a previous post). Clockwise from the top left corner: a hoverfly and smaller unidentified insect on an unknown yellow flower (larger image), goslings (larger image), Ninebark 'Coppertina' (Physocarpus opulifolius flower (larger image) and Mama (or Papa) goose with goslings (larger image). I wondered when I posted an image on Flickr that was very similar to the last image how one could tell the sex of an adult goose... a couple of my Flickr friends referred me to a web article telling in more detail than I wanted to know exactly how to tell whether an adult Canadian goose is a male or a female. Personally, I think I will just continue to wonder!

I'll quite possibly be posting this to several linked blogs... Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos, communal global on Tuesday and World Bird Wednesday. I'm sort of running out of time to get ready for travel and will be posting to my vacation blog while I'm away. I've already posted my itinerary for those who might want to follow along with my journey.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to queue up a few blog posts between now and when I leave so that I don't completely drop off everyone's radar while I'm away. :-) I will try to visit blogs while on travel but am not sure how well that will work out since I'm traveling with no computer and will have only my iPhone and a Wi-Fi enabled iPad to use for limited connectivity from time to time as circumstances allow.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Rain-drenched Poppy images... Spring 2011

purple poppy
This poppy (am pretty sure that's what it was) caught the eye of everyone who passed by it. This and the next image are from the macro workshop at Green Spring Gardens in Virginia... it is going to be quite awhile before I stop posting images from the workshops I've been taking lately!

insect on poppy flower
I have no idea what this tiny insect is... but it is the master (mistress?) of all he (she?) surveys while standing tall in the center of this poppy.

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come join the fun!

Sunday, May 15, 2011

'Blue Wonder' Catmint... tiny blossom... big bokeh!

Blue Wonder Catmint with rain droplets
This image is from a workshop in macro photography given 'on site' at Green Spring Gardens in Alexandria, Virginia. The day started out with misty rain and then a bit heavier sprinkles but the rain soon stopped, leaving us with gray skies and cool weather. For the better part of our adventure, we had ample opportunity to explore the beautiful grounds and capture marvelous flowers (and even an insect, spider or geese and water features at the ponds) with our macro lenses. Blue Ridge Mountain Workshops delivered another fine adventure in photography!

This is one of my favorite images from the day... if you know this plant, you will know the flowers are TINY! This was taken with my 20mm Kenko extension tube plus Nikon 105mm macro lens... the pink bokeh is from the phlox flowers planted in and around the Catmint. If you'd like to view more of my images from the workshop, I've posted 26 in a web album. The slide show takes less than one minute to view.

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come join the fun and check out all the lovely macro images!

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Bishops' Mitre (Epimedium x Rubrum) ... Spring 2011

maroon red and white Epimedium blossom
I do so look forward to these tiny flower blossoms every spring. Their delicate beauty fascinates me as do all the lovely details visible in a very close macro shot such as this one. In case you don't know this flower, the size of a single blossom is 10-12mm across (about the size of a dime US currency) so that gives you a sense of how tiny the ant is that was crawling around on this blossom! (taken while lying flat on the ground to get down to "eye" level with the blossoms)

This is a shade loving, low growing, ground cover plant that naturalizes slowly to cover a larger area of the garden each year. My garden has quite a lot of shady area!

I'll be posting this to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... on Monday, of course!

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Candytuft... perfection in miniature in the spring garden... 2011

Candytuft in sunlight
I'm finally getting back to somewhat normal after being away for a family funeral (mentioned in the previous post) and coming home with a miserable cold. Yesterday was the first day I felt mostly human again and it poured down rain all day. Today is bright and sunny and I was inspired to get outdoors and take a few pictures of the garden blossoms.

Last year, my attempts to photograph my Candytuft in bloom were mostly failures but I'm rather pleased with this image which required almost no post-processing except for a minor crop and slight brightness adjustment. Hope you enjoy this and that you have a marvelous week ahead of you. I'll be slowly making my way around to blogs over the next week or so... it's amazing how far behind one can fall by being basically off-line for only 11 days!

Posted to Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... come join the fun!

Saturday, April 9, 2011

In memory of Robin... August 15, 1937 - April 6, 2011

pink flowering tree blossom
My half-brother Robin passed away April 6, 2011 after a long illness. Many family members (myself included) were with him at the end. He was an avid gardener and spent many happy hours studying plants as well as growing many lovely specimens in his garden.

Thanks to montucky at Montana Outdoors, I now know the name of the flowering tree whose blossom I've shown here. My sister-in-law told me the plant name was "oo-me" which I spelled phonetically to represent how she pronounced it. I'd tried to find information about it by just about every possible combination and permutation of letters and had failed to find it. But thanks to montucky, I now know it the name is spelled "ume" and the tree, Prunus mume, is known by several common names, among them Japanese apricot and Chinese plum. The blossoms range from white to the deep pink shown here.

I'm posting this image in Robin's memory as it seems a fitting tribute to share something of beauty that he enjoyed. I promise to return visits as soon as I'm able but am spending family time this week and am not online nearly as much as usual. (did take a few minutes time today to post this at Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... stop by and join the fun...)

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Raindrops on Helleborus Petals... Spring, 2011

helleborus with raindrops
After the previous post, anything will look pale by comparison to the intense colors of the Crocus. This is another close-up with my 105mm macro lens... but no extension tubes were used for this one. I rather like the fact that only one droplet is in sharp focus on the Helleborus leaving the rest of the image to mostly recede into the background.

I'm posting this so it's ready for sharing on Macro Monday over at Lisa's Chaos... check it out and join the fun!

Monday, February 28, 2011

Tiny blossoms of Mahonia signal spring in my garden... February 2011

Mahonia blossoms
Along about mid-February every year, I have to go out in the garden and see what is happening... and ever since I planted a Mahonia bush on the north side of my house, these tiny yellow blossoms are one of the first signs that winter is over!

This image was taken with my 105mm macro lens and ALL THREE Kenko extension tubes stacked together (36mm, 20mm and 12mm)... which explains the soft focus and extremely shallow depth of field. If you are unfamiliar with Mahonia, the blossoms are each about the size of a green pea and will soon have bees buzzing about to gather nectar.

If you are unfamiliar with Mahonia, the plant has very stiff leaves with spiny tips (holly leaf shape) which make it hard to get close in to photograph the bees. Every year I try so I'm sure you will see at least one post later in the spring to show this year's attempt at capturing them busy at work.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Two Confused Camellia blossoms for your viewing pleasure...

white camellia with a touch of pink
This time of year, thoughts turn to the weather because the garden goes dormant and we have to wait until spring for color in the garden. BUT, our weather this fall has been unseasonably warm and my spring blooming Camellia has decided to bloom now instead of waiting until spring. It's quite lovely with white, bi-color pink and white (as you see here with just a splash of pink, but sometimes much more pink than white) and even a few solid pinks now and then. I fear this means I'll have no blossoms in spring so I've been out photographing a few this past week to have the images to enjoy now and again in spring.

pink camellia with a touch of white
I don't normally post two images but as I was typing the above image caption, I realized maybe you'd like to see the mostly pink blossom as well as the white and I have WAY more images than I have time to post them! The pink image is a touch out of focus because those blossoms are in a spot where I have to balance precariously in order to photograph them.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Fourth of Five in Round One Portfolio for Photography Slam competition...

raindrops on Hydrangea blossoms
This image, entitled Hydrangea wet with raindrops... is one from a year or more ago that somehow never got posted here. It is the fourth of five included in my winning first round portfolio in the contest described in an earlier post.

And I'm still floating on a cloud for having done so well in the contest... placing in the top three means that some of my photographic images will be in a gallery show during FotoWeek DC 2011 (about a year from now).

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Hoverfly on Sunflower Petal... July, 2010

hoverfly on sunflower
Another image from the Sunflower Workshop given by Blue Ridge Workshops on July 11, 2010. If you are in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area and are not averse to being an early riser, I recommend this workshop for the excellent advice you will be given and the many opportunities for spectacular pictures as the light changes throughout the morning. The workshop is given annually in July.

Although I could have cropped this image closer to concentrate more attention on the hoverfly, I like the bright yellow of the petals against the dark background bokeh and am rather pleased with how this turned out.

ATTENTION fellow bloggers who are getting spammed by the person unknown who repeatedly tries to post comments with embedded links to multiple undesirable sites. I hope you have already turned on comment moderation for your blog so that you don't get these nasty comments showing up for others to see. This morning, I discovered that clicking the link that includes, in part, ...blogger.com/profile/... takes you to the jerk's profile. IF he has a blog listed, then click the link to the blog (nothing will be on it, he changes ID over and over and over again) and then click the "Report Abuse" link at the top of the page to report him. (The link to click is the first link IN the email you get asking if you want to Publish or Reject (yes REJECT) the comment from this jerk.)

Google is aware of this jerk and repeatedly deletes his Google accounts and all pages associated with him... he just comes back in another guise and continues his naughty ways.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Sunflower blossom... not yet opened... Summer, 2010

sunflower blossom beginning to open
It's been awhile since I've posted here... partly because of travel and generally being quite busy otherwise... also because of frustration with the nasty troll who keeps trying to post inappropriate comments on my images (has already tried a dozen times or more on the previous image). Guess he keeps hoping I might slip up and approve one of his tedious comments once in awhile... NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!

Meanwhile, this image is from a photo workshop led by Blue Ridge Workshops... held Sunday July 11, 2010 in a field of sunflowers near where I live in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. We were at the field shortly after 5 AM to take advantage of the early morning light. I learned a LOT and have WAY TOO MANY Sunflower images to post here without boring you all to tears. (all 23 of my somewhat regular followers plus whoever else shows up from time to time) I particularly like this one for the graceful way the bloom is starting to unfurl.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Elimediums... delicately beautiful and TINY blossoms... Spring, 2010

I don't very often post two images in one day... but am making an exception today so you will be able to see both varieties of Epimedium currently blooming in my garden. I first saw this plant while touring a public garden several years ago and was amazed by the tiny blooms. But there was no marker to tell me what the plant was. Then, a year or two later, I hired a garden designer to draw up a plan for my garden which had quite a few shady areas that needed attention after I killed off all the grass in favor of having flowers and shrubs. Imagine how happy I was to find out that the mystery plant that had fascinated me a few years previously was one she recommended for my garden.

The first of the two species I have shown below is Epimedium x rubrum, which is commonly known as Bishop's Mitre (or Hat) from the shape of the flowers, or red barrenwort. The second, shown below Bishops Mitre, is Epimedium grandiflorum which is also known by several other names: Longspur Epimedium, Barrenwort 'Orangekonigin' or Horny Goat Weed (Wikipedia will tell you why it's known as Horny Goat Weed) to name a few. Both of these plants are low growing and spread somewhat slowly... both require cutting back in February before the new growth starts and both bloom profusely in spring before the weather gets too hot. Filtered sunlight is fine early in the growing season but full shade is best during the heat of summer which makes them perfect under my dogwood trees in the front garden!

Epimedium 'Bishops Hat'

Longspur Epimedium blossom

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Mixed pair of violets... garden volunteers... Spring 2010

purple and white violet blossoms
I normally pull these up as weeds... for some reason... there are LOADS of them coming up in my garden this spring... yellow ones, this plant with white and lavender on the same plant, a bi-color yellow and deep magenta... they are everywhere. Maybe this year I'll keep them... they are quite cheery and bloom LATE into winter and started blooming as soon as the snow melted this spring.