This week I’ve chosen Dianthus for my Flowers for Friday, or Pinks as I usually call them.
I grew these flowers in my yard a couple of years ago. I remember it was a hot, dry summer and everything was looking parched and bedraggled. Daily rounds with the watering can were to no avail. But then after a week of August rain, all of my yard flowers produced another flourish of blooms just before Autumn.
I do love nature’s way of gifting us in our gardening endeavours, especially when we are beginning to feel that the efforts we have put in have been in vain.
Dahlias are one of my favourite flowers. I look forward to their colourful blooms in the garden throughout the summer, bursting out of their large button-like buds.
Dahlias, front and back
I love the way the sun lights up both the crimson dahlia behind and the sunburst dahlia in front. I also love the way the light creates a fascinating green speckled shadow from the old green bottle that I chose for these flowers.
A trip to Sunderland is not complete for our family without a visit to Sunderland Winter Gardens and Mowbray Park.
Fountain – Sunderland Winter Gardens
The “Winter Gardens” is really an absolutely enormous greenhouse, full of exotic plants such as banana plants and pitcher plants that you’d normally find in a tropical rainforest. It’s probably hardly surprising that in this mini rainforest, water features are important. One of our favourite water features is this stainless steel fountain. The water cascades down the surface of the tall steel tower, making wonderful wave patterns and catching the light as it flows.
Fountain – Mowbray Park, Sunderland
Right outside of Sunderland Winter Gardens is Mowbray Park, a lovely old-fashioned municipal park, complete with a duck pond and this rather marvelous fountain. I love the way my son has captured the falling water in this shot.
“What’s This?” was the question Cee gave us to ponder for last week’s Fun Foto Challenge. We then had a lot of fun trying to work out what other people had posted.
For my entry, I zoomed in on some natural subjects, focusing on shapes and details. This week, I promised to post the original images so you can see the whole zoomed out picture. Here they are …
1. Woodland waterfall
Miniature waterfall on a woodland stream
This is one of the many small streams (or ‘burns’ as well call them here in The North 😉 ) that flows into the River Derwent in our local woods. I love this miniature waterfall as it cuts its way through the bedrock and pours down onto the next level below, surrounded by woodland greenery. I often find myself reaching for my camera when I see it. For the challenge, I picked out the water splash detail.
2. Hellebores in April snow in a plant pot
Hellebores in April snow in a plant pot
This is one of the two pots of the “Washfield Doubles” Hellebores I have on the steps by my back door. In this photo from April 2012, it looks like I was focusing on the quantity of late snow, rather than the plant itself! For the challenge, I chose the detail of the concentric curves of the terracotta pot, its black plastic liner and the topping of clean white snow.
3. Worm’s eye view of a woodland mushroom
Worm’s eye view of a large woodland mushroom
As I am not in the habit of crawling on my belly in beechwoods, you will notice this photo was taken by my son! I am always drawn to the unusual angles of this set of mushroom shots so I thought it would be perfect for the “What’s this?” challenge.
Lime or bright green is the theme for Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week. As a keen follower of the natural world and the cycle of seasons, green is a colour that is very much part of my world. In my corner of the UK, I find bright greens are a colour I mainly associate with Summer or Springtime, such as the newly sprouted tufts of clean, green moss in my header image that brighten the floor of our beechwoods.
Lime green – Homegrown Salad leaves
Springtime for me is also the beginning of the salad-growing season. I love the contrast of the red against lime green in my window ledge ‘garden’ of mixed salad leaves.
Lime green – Summer sun through grass
With the Summer sun shining through, the meadow grasses glowed lime green. My son captured this ground level image.
Lime green – Damselfly on Herb Robert leaf
A Common Blue Damselfly was enjoying the limelight on this bright green Herb Robert leaf.
Lime green – Sunshine on leaves
Woodlands in their Summer glory are filled with many shades of green. Sunshine adds yet more variety as it filters through the trees and highlights some of the leaves.
You can see what others have found on the theme of Lime or Bright Green on Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge this week.
Oak Trees Studio 