More Spring Flowers - Shrubbery

About 4 or 5 weeks ago at the beginning of March, I posted a few photos of some early flowers in my garden. I do it every year, its always the same flowers but I still take more photos - maybe one year I will get a definitive shot and be satisfied.

Now it is the turn of the flowering shrubs, the daffodils have come and gone and the tulips are looking sorry for themselved and the bluebells and their cousins the whitebells are coming to the end of their flowering season. But the forsythia, japanese quince and magnolia stellata have come into their own.

 Beautiful red blooms on the japanese quince

 the startling yellow flowers of the forsythia

(last years trimmed shoots look sorry though)

A corner near the bottom of my garden, the two shrubs

I have shown above, with the magnolia between them.

The magnolia is just coming into flower in this shot, and guess who forgot to go back and take a close-up of that bush. A little too late now as it is past its best. But the Eonymous (variegated leaves and later on white flowers), right at the bottom is coming along strongly. You can just see a remnant of my vegetable garden in this shot as well. I still have one rhubarb crown which feeds us without taking over the freezer these days.

I have started the work which needs to be done in the garden, yesterday I was painting the sheds. Last week I mowed the lawns and now they will need it everyweek. And I have been vainly trying to stop a bamboo from colonising my stream-bed - a never ending task. Ah well, We enjoy it, don't we?

Springtime And The Garden Blooms ...

Well almost, but with the excellent spring weather we are finally seeing there is some movement on the flowering front in my garden. Daffodils and primula are in evidence but many others especially the early flowering shrubs are in bud and willl be flowering very soon. A couple of early risers in my garden are The hellebore, commonly known as the christmas rose because it flowers so early...

I love this colour, and the pieris ...

such a delicate flower. Of course after these white flowers we shall see the wonderful red new leaf bracts forming which give the plant its nickname of the flamebush.

I am always in the garden with my camera and each year I follow the different plants through their flowering cycles, in fact I have written two Squidoo articles about this topic. You can find them:-

1.  A virtual tour of my garden

2. Ten favourite red flowers for your garden

But Spring is a wonderful time for the gardener and photographer, although so I guess are the other seasons each has its own charm. Enjoy your garden.

Daily photo - sunrise over my back garden

I woke up this morning and as I got out of bed, caught a glimse of a fantastic sunrise . Knowing how quick and fleeting these can be, I rushed downstairs for my camera, straight back up and then opened the window (I can still feel the blast of cold air rushing into the centrally heated bedroom, and me in my jammmies) leaned out and took a set of photos. Did not stop to compose or set anything - just trusted to the auto settings and clicked again and again.

Later, at my PC, I downloaded the results and was pleasantly surprised. So todays photo is a sunrise over my back garden.

Later on in the day, the weather was brilliant. The sky turned into a wonderful clear blue ceiling with the sun, yes the sun heating up the air and a very slight breeze just about shook the tops of the tallest and spindly branches of the eucalyptus tree.

Amazing after all the rain and storms we have been experiencing lately. It is definitely a "lull before the storm". The forecast is for more of the wet and windy stuff for tomorrow and the rest of the week. But for today, I intend to make the most of the weather and will be going out with my camera this afternoon, so my fingers are crossed that the light stays with us and allows me to get a few decent shots of my excursion.

A TIP: I know many people will know this but I hope that I can pass on a few of the obvious tips which beginners often need to learn.

When taking a photo of this sort, decide what you are  after in the shot and make sure the settings are relevant to this. Here for instance, the sky is the obvious focus. I said above that I used the automatic settings, but my camera will focus and adjust itself with a half click on the shutter button. Making this focusing action on the sky allows the camera to set for that area. I.e. it is the lightest part of the image and the exposure/contrast of the sky will be allowed for when the shutter is fully actioned.

If you wanted to bring out more detail in the dark area at the horizon, then you would need to make that first half-click with the cross-hairs on that area. So even though it is in automatic mode, I make sure the camera is doing what I want it to do. Of course if you prefer and have the camera for it you can make all the settings yourself. But I know that I and many others rely for many of their photographs on their camera. This is fine, as long as you realise that you still hold the key to a good photo.

And of course that then opens up the idea of composing the shot - maybe some future post ...

One, Two, Three, Four ... Poppies

I have a small raised bed underneath an apple tree at the bottom of my garden. I use it for courgettes an cucumbers but this year we had a very bad and very a late spring, and consequently my plants for this position did not get a very good start.In fact I ended up with one courgette and no cucumber plants. Even now in August, I am not sure I am going to get any produce from this plot.

However, because I did not weed it as my crops were not growing I have had a great display of poppies and violas. I usually put the old compost from my flower baskets on this plot as soil conditioner, with the output from my compost bin, this makes a great growing medium. The violas definitely came from self seeded plants from the baskets but where the poppies came from I simply don't know. They were however a wonderful, delicate shade of mauve.

As ever, I was taking pictures with my digital camera of the flowers in the garden and the largest poppy kept on flowering. I took a photo of the first bloom on the plant; then a second; a third and finally caught the fourth in bud. I thought this made an interesting series and so I am sharing it with you here.

The photos are fair but not great, the shade from the apple tree was a problem for my camera. Perhaps it could have been used better (a poor workman blames his tools, I know) but even after all this time I still use it on the auto setting. Perhaps I should experiment?

Answers on a postcard please!

Springtime Garden Flowers

A simple and straight forward title. I really enjoy pottering in the garden (at least when the sun is shining) and what's more this provides me with an endless range of subjects for my lens during the year. In spring and summer particularly of course we have the colour of the flowers which line the borders in abundance.

Although we are now in high summer and thinking about holidays by the sea, I am taking the opportunity to show off a few of my spring flowers. They herald the coming of the new year and the fact that the holiday season (still thinking about it!) will soon be upon us. So here they are, My springtime favaourite - or at least a few of them.

Shrubs and perennials are what I mainly grow in my garden, low maintenence plants which just require a quick pruning or division to propagate new individual plants. Weeding becomes the only real work.

To start with one of a beautifully coloured hellebore,

I had this as a "moveable" plant at first. I grew it in a

large pot. But I left it in one place too long and the roots

must have decided that they liked the ground and now it is 

a permanent fixture.

Now this is a real beauty, Forsythia.

Brilliant yellow flowers in early spring

without being hidden by leaves which come 

after the blossom. And cuttings are so easy.

One year I used some pruned sticks as supports 

for my peas after they had been lying around for 

a long time. They actually started growing and 

sprouted new leaves - I was amazed, life after death!

A Japanese Quince, unfortunately not an edible variety.

Each year the bush is filled with these tight little red 

blooms, before forming hard fruits.

You may not immediately ecognise this as a Magnolia,

but it is a variety called Magnolia Stellata. Or the Star 

Magnolia because of the shape of its flowers. A very 

welcome early flowering shrub, a little short lived but

beautiful flowers when they are on the plant.

Just to be different, this Christmas cactus (aka Easter cactus, 

depending on the weather?) was on my mom-in-laws kitchen

windowsill for many years. As she passed away recently we

gave it a home and it is still flowering away happily in our kitchen.

I will be posting a few more photos of the flowers in my garden and maybe even some of the photomanipulations which I have created using them. Its all great fun. And look out for some of the wild life in the garden coming up. Birds, amphibians (frogs and toads) and insects including some beautiful butterflies.

Keep taking those photographs and remember - HAVE FUN

A busy day in the garden with Robin

Had a hard day in the garden this week, We were having a fence put in and I had to clear the rubbish from around the garden where the fence was going. Never realised that I had collected so much rubbish.

But this guy, Robin, we called him, stayed and kept us company for a whole day virtually, I was too busy but my wife fetched the camera and tried to take a few photos. He didn't seem shy until being lined up for a shot, and then would he keep still? She used the zoom (at x5 approx) and finally got one or two shots. Read about Robins on Wikipedia.

There he was gone, but look at that rubbish

a-ha, got him, almost

 turned his back on the camera

tried to hide

peeking out

finally got him, even if it is a little fuzzy

Photographs From My Garden

Over the years I have taken so many photographs of my garden, That I decided to bring some of them together and create a virtual tour which I could post to the internet.

Sorting them out was a difficult task, should I pick my favourites (possibly) or those I felt may interest other people. Should I include lots of images or be selective. I would not want to bore the pants off people. In the end, I picked a few to show the overall structure of the garden and one or two of the individual flowers and plants.

If you would like to see more  then pop on across to my Squidoo Lens, Welcome To My Garden. This was awarded a purple star from Squidoo HQ, the sites top award for its lenses (web pages), an outcome I found very pleasing.

This gave me the courage to follow it up with another lens of photographs taken in my garden. This time I included photos of ten of my favourite red flowering plants and shrubs. Again I was awarded with a purple star. Both lenses were also featured on the home page when first published. If you would like to check out the ssecond lens you can find it at, Ten Favourite Red Flowers For Your Garden.

Please do try to find time to visit my garden, always great to show people around on this virtual tour.

The case of the disappearing wheelbarrow

Just a quick post, I was getting a few photographs ready for posting and realised that I had an intruder in one of the shots, a wheelbarrow.

Not being able to go back and take another photo, I decided to doctor it in PS. I think I have done a good job, what do you think?

The dish is called Galadriel's Mirror and is in a garden that we visited recently. More info and shots in the next post. But for now .... now you see it, and now you don't. I am learning to use this great editing tool.

BTW for those interested I simply used the CLONE STAMP tool - carefully!

Spring Flowers

I have been photogaphing the spring flowers in my garden with my new camera.

forget-me not

 

star magnolia

Bearded Iris

The garden and the flowers which bloom throughout the year have always been a great source of images for me. I love pottering with my camera, especially when the sun is shining. My new Coolpix camera has a feature to prevent images being blurred and I seem to be getting better close-ups with the macro feature. Here are a couple of examples.

You can see more of my garden / flower photographs on Redgage. See my profile on Redgage.

Redgage is a site that pays for content and links to your articles and images on other sites on the web why not give it a try. It is not a get-rich-quick site, far from it but does pay for work that you are posting on to the web in blogs or other sites.

around the garden

I love taking photos of the garden. The flowers, the sunsets, the plants and the spaces between them.

I also take photos of the constructions that I build with "scrap wood". This is a seat in a quiet corner almost walled-off by trees and shrubs

Note the flattened plants at the left-hand front corner. I had just trimmed the hedge when I took this shot and those clippings have to go somewhere.

The next is a place for sitting in the sun , quite near the house so handy for a quick bite / drink when too much housework is getting me down.

This next photo is a rose which was a christmas present. It is still waiting to be found a permanent home but seems to be OK despite still being in a pot. My garden is so full of shrubs that it is in dire need of an overall to find some space for a few flowers.

On the other hand this rambler has been growing in a sheltered spot for a long time. Originally a cutting from a plant I remember my father planting when I was a small boy, almost 55 years ago. Ithe cutting must be 25 years old but has never grown. Dying back every year to almost ground level. This year after a cold winter and a sunny spring it has given the best display ever. Dad would have liked it.