Tag Archives: flowers

A Selection of Wisley Plants

Earlier in the year, we made an afternoon visit to Wisley – the headquarters of the Royal Horticultural Society. I have posted about it previously but, this post is about some of the really cool looking plants that they have. That is what you would expect for a horticultural society, of course. Some of them are really fascinating looking plants so here are some shots.

Summer Flowers at Bloedel

Organized gardens can certainly look very attractive, but the wildflower look can be even better at times.  There are some meadow areas at Bloedel Reserve and one of them was overloaded with poppies when we visited.  There were restrictions on how close you could get at the time because they were protecting various areas from foot traffic.  I had left the longer lens in the car so I was limited to what I could manage with the 24-105 but that didn’t matter too much.  The reds and golds of the poppies looked fantastic and, while I would have liked to have shot a tighter crop through the flowers, I was happy to make do with the views available to me.

How Much Purple is There on These Houses?

While walking through Richmond, we came along a street of older houses in what seemed like quite a desirable neighborhood.  The dominant feature of most of these houses was the preponderance of wisteria on their frontages.  Some of the plants were confined to one house while others seemed to span whatever property that they felt like.  The purple blooms were most impressive, and it seemed like they were competing to see which house could be more purple than the next.  I don’t know how long wisteria blooms for so did we get lucky with our timing, or could we have been there at a wider range of times?

Time for Our Regular Spring Visit to Meerkerk

Spring means rhododendrons and our favorite place to go looking for them is Meerkerk.  A sunny weekend forecast meant we made the trip over to Whidbey to see how things looked.  Visiting has always been a bit of a crapshoot for us.  Will we get there before they come into full bloom?  Will they already be passed their prime?  This time I think we hit it pretty spot on.

The bushes were full of color with blooms all over the place.  A few may have peaked, and some were, no doubt, still to come, but so much was looking great, I think we couldn’t have done better.  Aside for a family that had brought along a photographer to take images of their small son who seemed very uninterested in doing anything they wanted resulting in the photographer’s voice being audible across the gardens, things were very tranquil.  (They didn’t stay long, and it was so nice when I heard them say they were leaving – of course I heard them say that, you heard everything they said!). Will we be so lucky next time?  Who knows?

Snowdrop Carpets

Not far from where we were staying while in the UK and en route to the wedding venue was Welford Park.  Nancy was interested in this place because it is the location for the filming of Bake Off.  However, it isn’t normally open to the public.  Spring is the one exception when the snowdrops flower in huge numbers in the woods on the estate and they open up for visitors.  Fortunately, the timing of this coincided with our visit so we scheduled a stop on our way to the wedding.

The weather was not looking like it would play ball.  Just as we arrived in the parking area – a field – the heavens opened.  We figured it was the UK so things could change quickly so waited it out.  Sure enough, ten minutes later the sun was out and we headed in.  There were a couple of times when the rain threatened again but we stayed basically dry, and we walked around the wood checking out the snowdrops.

They weren’t kidding.  We saw quite a few as we walked into the estate but then we got to the woods and the place was carpeted with them.  At first, I thought it was just the distance that made it look so dense but, no, when you got closer, it was really that many flowers.  We wandered around the grounds taking them all in.  It didn’t take too long, of course, before you started to get a little blasé about just how many there were.  Sure, more snowdrops!  No biggie!

Hummers on Real Flowers

With the feeders in our backyard, I have been able to shoot plenty of photos and videos of the hummingbirds coming in to feed.  This has been a lot of fun but it has always lacked a little something because of the artificial nature of the environment.  Our recent acquisition of new hanging baskets for the backyard has changed this a bit.  They are plenty of tiny flowers in these baskets and these have appealed to some of the hummers.

Not all of them, though.  The majority still seem to prefer the sugar water in the feeders but some like to work their way around the flowers.  This requires a lot more flexibility from the hummingbird to get in to the flowers but they make it look so simple.  The flowers are only in sun for part of the day so some of the shots I have got have been in shade while others have been better lit.  What matters, though, is that a bird against a flower backdrop has a far more natural feel to it than when they are feeding from one of the artificial food suppliers.

I spent most of the time getting stills of them working around the flowers.  It all looks good when you are watching it but only certain angles make for good photos.  I did get some video too so a little edit of that is included below.

Blossom in the Neighborhood

The walk around the block was one of the things were were allowed to do when shelter in place took effect.  This started at a good time for the local flora.  As we walked up the hill near the house, we could see across to the grounds of a large plot near the street.  They had a row of bushes that were all in flower providing a beautiful burst of color.  I was carrying the small M6 but took a sequence of shots to stitch together.  I also include a few other shots of the flowering we saw walking around.

Rose Garden

Point Defiance Park had a rose garden that seemed worth a visit.  Walking in to the garden I was immediately struck by the fragrance of the flowers.  Some roses are a lot more fragrant than others but, stick enough of them together and you are going to get a strong smell.  Roses are interesting in how many varieties that they come in.  Some look exactly like you might imagine a rose while others are very different in shape.

The garden was laid out around a central point with rows of blooms curving around the middle.  They were attracting human and insect visitors in large quantities.  Some blooms seemed to be quite persistent while others looked like they reached their peak before quickly wilting and being replaced by another bloom.

We had entered the garden from one side but on the other was a more structured entrance which took you through an arch covered in multiple blooms.  The concentration of flowers made it visually striking.  Also, having the light coming through from above meant that the flowers were backlit which made for a nice look and a filtered color of light inside the tunnel.  Hardly a person passed without taking their own photo.

Tulip Festival

The Skagit Valley sits about an hour north of Seattle and is home to a lot of tulip farms.  The spring is the time for the tulip festival.  Unfortunately, the beginning of the festival was not a great time for us to get up there with other things going on.  However, as things calmed down for us, we were able to get up there towards the end of things.  We may have missed the peak time but there was still some impressive stuff to see (and hopefully quite a few less people!).

The fields were absolutely full of tulips.  They filled your field of view and you quickly became blasé about the vibrance of color around you.  Finding a way to try and convey the sight was a little trickier.  The thing I did find particularly visually appealing was the way that people would be walking along the paths between the flowers but appear to be afloat in a sea of flowers.  They were all busy photographing themselves in amongst the tulips so were not aware that they were the subject of more than one photo.

Floral Fun

This one isn’t a complicated post.  It is just some flowers really!  We had visitors for the weekend and were out wandering around the city.  The sun was out and so were plenty of flowers.  I don’t claim these flowers sprouted perfectly for me.  Usually someone has brought them in and transplanted them into the planters to make the place always look good.  However, some of them were actually growing where we saw them.

Anyway, I am not really a flower shooter but I was pleased to see them and thought I would grab a few shots.  No-one is going to be gasping over their brilliance but who cares?  They were pretty and the sun was out so what is there to worry about?