yellow tulip
I was looking through some old work….so a yellow tulip in celebration of Passover….
Posts from the ‘gardens’ category
Trees
These perfect shade trees always make me smile, all the best farms have them.
Miscellaneous wildlife from the garden
This snake surprised me, at first I thought it was a branch stuck in my boxwood, but no….. It stayed quite still while I tried to find a decent angle. I wish I could have gotten closer.
This is a Northern Harrier, not a Redtail. The field marking is a white patch at the base of its tail, that is easily visible when it flys away from you. It had some very successful hunting in our fields after we mowed, spending the better part of the day for about a week. It was very blaise about our presence and several times flew low and slow enough for Havoc to give chase.
A fuzzy picture of one of our House Wrens. The first nest of the season was in the upper skull (we watched six fledglings leave the nest) and the later nest was in this skull. I don’t know how many fledged from this attempt, they did so in private.
Frogs….
I’ve been photographing the frogs in my garden for years. They are very cooperative subjects….they sit still for ages and don’t mind the camera…. But the puzzle to solve in photographing them is to make the image interesting, so that the viewers response is more than ‘yes that’s a frog, so?’.
These are my most successful efforts to date, as usual it’s all in the lighting.
Sparkles, yeah….
This one almost feels like a studio shoot, draped backdrop and dramatic lighting….
I like the drama of this one, both the lighting and composition.
Every time I do ‘wildlife’ photography I am more in awe of the skill and patience of professional wildlife photographers.
Mandatory Fall Foliage
A selection of my annual effort at capturing the Autumn spectacle….
Poison ivy and Virginia creeper always provide a good show.
Black Walnuts don’t get much color, but they back light quite nicely. I have a love hate relationship with my Black Walnuts, they drop their leaves early, leaf out late, and there are very few things that grow well near them. But they are stately trees with fabulous gothic shapes and they feed and shelter lots of wildlife.
Red Maple (Acer rubrum) this a commercially available variety, planted near a parking area, it gets great color every year. I wish I knew its name…..
Beech, Maple and Tulip trees with a it of grape vine. Beech trees turn yellow then pale brown becoming more translucent as the winter goes on. Some Beech trees keep their leaves well into winter, by the time they fall they look like rice paper.
Another version of the red maple above, it has a remarkable range of reds.
These were all taken in Rosendale, NY in October. We are having a very good year for fall foliage. The only drawback is that the leaf peepers make driving on the weekends a bit more challenging than strictly necessary. But tourists are large part of our economy around here, so I will try to keep my whining to a minimum.
Dramatic Lighting
It takes an absurd number of tries to get a photo worth keeping.
Havoc, yet again.
Zinnias.
Summer Color
I looked through a bunch of my garden photos in an effort to remind myself that it will eventually be warm enough for the dogs and I to hang out on the porch, instead of clustering by the wood stove.
I obsessively photographed this Canna this summer. I believe it’s called Tropicana, though it looks just like Pretoria to me.
Calla lilies.
This was my favorite plant combination this summer – Mexican Heather, Sweet Potato Vine and Red Banana (which you can barely make out in the background).
This Hibiscus was an amazing performer this summer. I’ve never had one bloom so prolifically. I don’t know if it was the weather, luck, or that I compulsively dead headed it, in any case it was lovely.
I worry that I’ve become obsessed with photographing sweet potato vines….
Garden Critters
I didn’t have as many frogs this summer, but I still had an amusing assortment of critters in the garden.
One of my few frogs.
The ever present gold fish.
The caterpillar of a Black Swallowtail Butterfly, they are fond of Queens Anne’s Lace, Carrots and Parsley. It’s worth planting extra to help keep them feed.
Spiderwebs are very tricky to photograph.
There was a flock of sparrows that showed up at more or less the same time every day.
Garden……
First of the garden pictures (for this growing season).
Phoebe admiring the pansies.
This is a new combination for me, Lupins and a annual salvia named ‘Black and Blue’. I’ll move the lupin in to the garden (out of the pot) when it’s done blooming and replace it with a red caladium. The hummingbirds like the salvia enough to drink from it while I am sitting right next to it, made my day.
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Foam flowers in bloom.
Passion flower, one of my favorite scents.
My lion before he’s covered in plants.
The Green Season
We are well into the green season here in the New York. It’s not as spectacular as Southeast Asia’s green season when the rice gets going, but it’s mine and I like it.
My favorite allee on route 32.
Last year I obsessed about the flowering trees, but the bloom time was so compressed this year (due to our crazy weather) that it blew right past me. So instead I focused on the ocean of ferns that erupt down the road.
I’m sure there are more fern photos in my future…..hope everyone else’s spring is as lush as mine.
cheech 297 