Showing posts with label Botanical photography. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Botanical photography. Show all posts

My Photo Journal: Morning Light at Stone Street Park

These are the magic moments that you will remember on your deathbed.
The things that made life worth living. Your first love, the birth of your child,
achieving that lifelong dream, sharing great food and sights with friends and loved ones.
Richard Heart

The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people
when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers,
and when they realize at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit,
and that its center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.
Black Elk

Throwback photo of a bare willow tree in morning light at Stone Street Park in Oshawa. Stone Street Park is a large park along the Oshawa segment of the 1400-km Great Lakes Waterfront Trail. The Oshawa portion of the Waterfront Trail runs along Lake Ontario for 15.5 km from the McLaughlin Bay Wildlife Reserve to Whitby Harbour. The ever-changing views along the water at Stone Street Park make it one of our favourite destinations to walk the dog.

© FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

My Photo Journal: Morning Light at Lakeview Park

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy.
If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem.
But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world.
This makes it hard to plan the day.
E.B. White

A crisp and brilliant morning at Lakeview Park in Oshawa. This is one of our favourite parks to walk in with the dog; it has lots of paved paths from which you can see and hear the water of Lake Ontario. Easily one of the most popular and accessible parks in the city.

All photos © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

My Photo Journal: Trees at Orono Crown Lands

The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Perfect weather for a nature walk through the Orono Crown Lands; the day was bright and sunny with just enough wind to keep the walk from getting unpleasantly hot. We took the Purple and Pink Loops today which meant we didn't get to walk beside Wilmot Creek. If possible, we aim to try the Red or Orange Loops next weekend as the path along the water can be very pretty.

All photos © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

My Photo Journal: Buddleia 'Grand Cascade' and a Common Buckeye Butterfly

Look deep into nature and you will understand everything better.
Albert Einstein

It's been a while since I attempted to make any gardening notes - it always seems so overwhelming on top of tending to the garden itself. However, I have resolved to keep more conscientous observations about what I have planted in the garden and how these plantings do over the year and hopefully, in years to come.

Here to kick things off is a Buddleia 'Grand Cascade' that was introduced to the back garden in 2022:
Now, even though the tag says full sun, I have had some success with butterfly bushes in partial shade before. This shrub was planted in a full sun to part shade location, and I have to say I was quite happy with the first season progress that it made.

It started producing masses of flower buds beginning of August, and boy, did it attract a ton of butterflies when it started blooming profusely in late August. It continued to flower vigorously into early November when it started getting brown and done. I feel that my flowers came out looking more pink than lavender (see first picture at top of page) but that might have something to do with the quality of the light when I took the photo ― late summer afternoon, deep shade. Despite the profusion of blooms, I must admit the perfume was quite underwhelming ― the scent is a lot more subtle than any other butterfly bush I've ever planted.

I garden in a Zone 5B and it's been a fairly mild winter so far so I am keeping my fingers crossed that the Grande Cascade will shower me with more love next year. However, just to be safe, I did mulch about 4 inches thick and piled bags of unopened compost all around the bottom part of the shrub to provide a bit of a wind break as well as additional warmth to the surrounding soil.

© FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

By the way, here are a couple of photos from the Walters Gardens site to show you how large this perennial shrub can grow. You can also find descriptions of the plant on their site. [Images below belong to Walters Gardens.]

My Photo Journal: Zinnia elegans 'Benary's Giant Salmon Rose'

Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.
Russell Baker

Are you experiencing sweltering heat where you live? This has been a pretty crazy end of summer in our Zone 5B garden. Temperatures were in the chilly single-digits last week but headed higher into the high 20+ degrees this week (30C+ with humidity). While most of our blooms don't seem to know what to do with themselves (some are really leggy, some are very floppy, more than a few are leggy and floppy), the zinnias that I planted in late spring are thriving and trouncing almost every other plant in the late summer garden sweepstakes.

The flower images shown here are the Salmon Rose variety of Zinnia elegans from the Benary's Giant series. The Benary's Giant line of dahlia-like zinnias was developed by Ernst Benary Samenzucht, a 170-year old seed breeding company with an interesting history. Benary's Giants are truly ginormous (as my daughter likes to say), with flower heads ranging from 3 to 5 inches across, which are very ably supported by their sturdy stalks that stay upright without staking, something I can't assert about my dinner-plate dahlias (lying face down in the dirt even as I type). I haven't seen any pest activity on these beauties but this is only my first year of growing this type of zinnia so time will tell if they are as insect and disease-resistant as claimed. I think I will switch these superlative annuals around with my weak-stemmed, aphid-infested dahlias in the front yard next year, perhaps in a wider variety of colours and in greater numbers so I can also use them as cut flowers in the home.

Have you spotted any Benary's Giant zinnias in your neighbourhood or are you growing some? Share a photo or story in the comments below. :)

© 2020 FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved. (Originally published 2017.)

My Photo Journal: Paeonia lactiflora 'Lady Alexandra Duff'

I took a close-up photo of this beautiful cottage garden peony during the Peony Festival, held yearly in the Oshawa Valley Botanical Gardens.

This fully double, pale pink beauty is the Paeonia lactiflora 'Lady Alexandra Duff.' 'Lady Alexandra Duff' is an heirloom variety that dates back to 1902, having been bred by Kelway and Son, once the largest nursery in the world. It takes its name from Lady, later Princess, Alexandra Duff (1891 - 1959), the daughter of Princess Louise of Wales and Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife. You can find more information about the plant here.

Do you have this attractive shrub growing in your garden or do you know someone who has? Share a picture and let us know how it's doing in the comments section. Below is a photo of the peony in full bloom (photo credit follows).

Paeonia lactiflora 'Lady Alexandra Duff' in springtime
by Andrey Korzun on Wikimedia Commons

© 2020 FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved. (Originally published 2015.)

My Photo Journal: Signs of Spring at the Oshawa Valley Botanical Garden

In the spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.
Mark Twain

Well, yesterday was a wild one, weather wise. Rain, slush, a smattering of snow that I thought was going to turn into hail... Yet somehow, I felt more cheerful than I would have even if I had encountered the same conditions a month and a half ago (when I thought winter would never end).

Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.
Doug Larson

No kidding, Doug! Isn't spring wonderful? Here are a couple of shots of emerging peony shoots at the Oshawa Valley Botanical Garden that I took last year. I haven't been back there yet to take pictures of them this year because it's been so wet and windy but I think I might just try today. The sun is out and I feel like whistling as I meander down some peony paths...

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My Photo Journal: Erythronium americanum (Trout Lily or Adder's Tongue)

Dancing faces you towards Heaven, whichever direction you turn.
Terri Guillemets

I took the picture above while on a family walk at Toronto's G. Lord Ross Park, located in the West Don River valley north of Finch Avenue. This is a great park for a long walk with the dog as it has an extensive nature trail. We especially love it in the spring when you can see the vegetation coming back to life and in the fall for the amazing colours on the trees!

Also called adder's tongue, the yellow trout-lily (Erythronium americanum) is one of the earliest wildflowers you will see in spring, sometimes appearing even while there is still snow on the ground. This particular picture is somewhat unusual because it shows the flower with its head tossed confidently back, unlike its usual tendency of nodding shyly on its thin, gangly stalk, its face hidden away from you. Since the blooms are diminutive and shrink timidly into the embrace of deep layers of dead leaves, you really have to look closely to detect this ephemeral wildflower. You will have better luck locating it by looking for its green and brown spotted leaves that makes the plant look like it has tied an army jacket around its waist!

Here is a wonderful article on this little flower's name origins and how to propagate trout lilies in your backyard garden from the Canadian Wildlife Federation. Have you ever spotted this plant? Leave a comment and let us know!

© 2020 FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved. (Originally published in 2016.)

My Photo Journal: As Maples Bloom

The maple trees are in full flower in Toronto, lighting up the surroundings with their sunny blooms. Individually, these flowers are small, barely even covering the palm of my 3 year-old daughter's hand. Collectively, they shroud each maple tree in a cloud of golden yellow and can be extremely striking from a distance. These flowers mature into maple "keys" which soar easily when the winds blow them helter-skelter, and are great fun for kids as they fling these "helicopters" and watch them spin through the air. Probably not as much fun for an ardent gardener as these keys take root very easily wherever they land!

I really liked the Rainer Maria Rilke quote that I used in the second picture, and tried to find the poem where it was supposed to have been taken. After scouring the Internet, I discovered that he never actually wrote those exact lines! The closest version I could find was a translation by Robert Temple of the following stanza from "The Sonnets to Orpheus":
Spring has come again.
The Earth is like a child that has learned to recite a poem;
No, - many, many.
And for the difficulty
Of learning them now, the prize is bestowed.

It was quite disconcerting, in a way, and I wondered if I should use the more accurate translation. In the end, I decided to leave the quote as-is since it appears quite frequently in popular quotation databases, and I felt that the sentiment suited the image nicely! Let's just chalk it up to poetic licence! :)

© 2019 FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved. (Originally published 2012.)

My Photo Journal: Renewal

Image © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

RENEWAL
by Dora Read Goodale
(first published 1887)

There's magic in the air today,
There's promise in the sun;
The very brooks begin to play,
And frolic as they run.

The hive is all astir with bees,
The slender willows shine;
The sap is mounting in the trees,
And swelling in the vine.

The swallow comes from far away
To seek her summer nest,
Whose narrow hanging walls of clay
Await the welcome guest.

At ease upon the cottage floor,
His head between his feet,
The shaggy setter guards the door,
Or dozes in the heat;

And there beneath the fitful ray
Of many a yellow beam,
His aged master, bent and gray,
Is laughing through his dream.

O, pleasure pricks in every vein,
And grief is turned to joy,
For Earth herself is young again,
And Time is but a boy!

Creative Commons Licence
Public domain poem is fom my personal collection. All digitized poems by FieldandGarden.com are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Please credit and link back to FieldandGarden.com as your source if sharing or publishing.

My Photo Journal: Winter Tree

WINTER TREE
by M.K. Powell

Alone, ignored,
The leaves, they went away in fall;
The tree is frozen,
Yet standing tall.

The winter tree
It's sleeping now;
But in spring, it will stir once more,
Wakened by the sun's warming glow.

Right now through the harsh winds of winter,
When animals retreat to their nests,
The tree stands lonely,
While the critters rest.

The scraggly branches
Reach up to the sky.
Remembering the summer days,
When life was peachy as pie.

Winter tree is dark against the sky,
But it stands tall and doesn't bend.
For in the spring,
the weather all will mend.

Poem and photo © 2018 FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.

My Photo Journal: Winter Foliage at Alexander Muir

What fire could ever equal the sunshine of a winter's day?
Henry David Thoreau

With the amazingly good weather over the past few days (double-digits and sunny), it's felt more like summer than winter in Toronto. It's somewhat disconcerting, therefore, to look around and still see monochromatic foliage when bursts of brightly-colored annuals might seem more appropriate for the unseasonally warm temperatures.

Not having shot a lot of photos in the Alexander Muir Memorial Gardens during the winter months, I thought I'd take the opportunity to get in a couple of late winter foliage shots before the city crew spruces up the park, and all the spring bulbs and early perennials start pushing their heads through the dark earth. If you've never been to this beautiful green space in the Yonge and Lawrence neighborhood, be sure to check it out for its easy walkability (especially with a 3 year-old), friendly dog owners, and the architecturally interesting buildings that can be glimpsed all around the park as you meander down the adequately maintained paths.

If you take the subway, just get off at the Lawrence stop, then walk south on Yonge, past Lawrence until you see the Locke Public Library. You can wander down to the playground in the little valley behind Locke and continue heading south from here. When driving, we tend to park on Lympstone Avenue, just right off Yonge. From here, we generally trot down into the mini ravine that runs parallel to St. Edmunds Drive, then uphill again where St. Edmunds turns in a loop back to Yonge. Cross from the north side of St. Edmunds to the south side (watch out for crazy drivers barrelling around the bend in their BMWs, Audis and assorted luxury cars), and you will be able to enter the Gardens through a series of little stone steps to the left of the park sign. We usually walk across the Gardens towards Mount Pleasant Road and Blythwood Road, and turn around once we reach the bridge that marks the entrance into Blythwood Ravine Park. I think that when my wee one is a little older and feeling more ambitious, we may continue onto Blythwood and tackle the Sherwood Park Reach. To get walking directions for this latter stretch and other walks as well as a guide to historic houses and points of interest along the mapped routes, be sure to browse through the Lost River Walks website. It's such a wonderful resource for urban walkers!

(This post was originally published in February 2012.) © FieldandGarden.com. All rights reserved.