Here are some from today the lighter pink peony. Very droopy today from the rains
Spring is in the air...Part 6
Tropicana
Mr. Lincoln
I took this, just because this is how I usually see my peonies when my nose is buried in them. :-)
Some peach roses that need to be sprayed already. :-(
I've been sleeping here while all of your flowers have been growing. Stunning - peonies, roses and the abutilons, not to mention everything else. Thanks so much.
These are landscape roses, with some purple flowers that I don't know the name of. Agapanthus and Watsonia foliage with a crepe myrtle bush in the middle.
This message was edited May 30, 2005 10:18 PM
This is a viticella Clematis - 'Etoile Rose'. I put it in this spring and it's happily blooming away and it's supposed to bloom all season. It's blooming in the shade too. This flower is only about two inches wide but it appears that there will be a lot of them. I'm happy.
This is one of the first Chocolate Cosmos flowers of the season. They bloom all summer and they smell exactly - well you guessed it - like chocolate. They are a little hard to keep damp enough though. They are one of the few things that wilt from lack of water so I have to water them by hand. They are worth it though.
Doss - lovely plants, great settings! Arlene
Love the hot pink peony close up Melissa~ Doss, you should publish a book with all your garden photos. I would buy it!
Susan
Moonshine Achillea doing it's thing.
Susan
A new annual verbena I am trying this year. Called Quartz Blue and it is!
Susan
Thank You Vicki for getting this thread to me to enjoy. Everyone listen up...Beautiful blooms one and all. Tazzy, I am in Kansas and does that Bird of Paradise really grow outside for you there in OK?
Love the pink rose with the blue love in the mist. I never would of thought of planting the two together....a complete outside bouquet. Lovely. Clematis , Roses, Columbine, and Abutilon.....the world is good. Thank you Janetlee50
Moonshine Achillea and daylily Springtime Saratoga. Not a fancy one, but it bloomed very heavily, earlier than Stella and still going strong. Love early early ones.
Susan
Springtime Saratoga looks a little like Bonanza, although Bonanza is a bit more orange, I guess.
Hey Janetlee - I'm glad you're enjoying the thread :-)
Vicki
Will everyone please jump over here http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/516685/ and say hello to my sister, Got2bgreen aka: Cheryl. Thanks! :-)
Our late spring flowers are coming on. We are 3" of rain shy for May. Perhaps June will bring more rain. The white dutch iris are blooming.
Also a big pot of annual Dianthus from last year.
Thanks for the vote of confidence on the photos - but I think that I'm in great company when it comes to that. I've gasped in delight at most of them. Maybe we should all publish a book together.
And gingerjar, the trick to photographing reds is to fix the white balance on your camera. It's pretty hard to do unless you have a camera that is like an SLR and you see through the lens what you are going to get. Some cameras have a graph that you can see to tell you how you've done.
The other thing is to fool around with light. Reds come out very differently. The photo of the chocolate cosmos is as dark as I could get it even fiddling with my camera. It would have been better at sunset or before the sun was all the way up. Overcast is good. And then, there's always the photo program you use. I believe that it's fair to use it if you want to really represent the color better. This is really closer to the real color of the Chocolate Cosmos.
This is a kind of bizarre quick stab at it. How red do you want it? Any wonder the flowers don't turn out like the photos. LOL
Here is one of my roses just pointing and shooting. I was just discussing with Chele, (badseed) that in my flower pictures I see no difference between my two cameras.
Picture 1
I don't know how to play with the white balance... I point and shoot, no matter which camera I use.
Same flower, camera 2
I think if I'd dig out my Mavica and take a picture with it, it would pretty much look the same too. Doss your pictures are great, but in my case, I think it's just the camera! :-)
IGNORE that first photo, it had been "altered" in paint shop, here is the unaltered version.
It does help to have a camera that will let you fool around with it. If you don't then the best you can do is play with the light - and the color of the background. I've found that taking a red or purple flower against a green bush is hard. If I can get something lighter around it, it's more likely to come out. Some photographers use a white box. It's like those twisty things you put in your car window that pop out in a circle - but it ends up a box. They are pretty cheap. When you put your subject in it the color comes out better. Try taking a photo of your flower by cutting it and putting it on a white piece of paper and see what happens.
Doss, we adjusted the color as you suggested, and it really looks more like the real thing now. You can also see more detail of the flower. Thanks!
This message was edited Jun 2, 2005 11:21 AM
This is a favorite late spring/early summer perennial. 'Bridal Veil' AstilbeXArendsii. Commonly called False Goat's Beard or False Spirea. I don't do well with other Astilbe type plants, but this one does OK in my rather dry partial shade area. Blooms for a number of weeks and foliage remains nice all season. I planted a few more this spring to replace some lambs ears that were doing way too well.
Susan
That's very pretty, Susan. I know what you mean by the lambs ears. Ours are that wat too.
Lamb's ears were great when I needed something to fill in bare spots in my borders, but I finally got rid of them all this spring. Just too many other things I want to grow, but I do love the way the gray color tones down the other colors around it.
Susan
Good work on that photo gingerjar.
And melissa - just dig out your sharpening tool in paintshop and try that. Your camera focused on the leaves instead of the flower. I hate that! Can you tell it's happened to me before a few times? You can fix that by using your macro if you have it. If you're going to photo flowers - it's the key.
Beautiful big Astilbes. Wow! But I love my lambs ears! I only have them in a couple of places, but the flower stalks are bout 15 inches high right now and they bloom for so long. I've never grown them in the shade though. I do love astilbes. They are one thing that will grow in dense shade. I'll have to take a photo of my lambs ears so you can see them.. I grow Iris in them. Maybe it's not hot enough where you live? At any rate - if something doesn't work for me, I don't grow it either. :-)
My husband keeps telling me to read the manuals... but both of my cameras just have too much stuff on them for me--- I likepoint and shoot. I wouldn't know how to change my settings.... I"m afraid if I do, I won't be able to change them back! :-)
I hear you, Melissa. Mine is the same way but I decided I was going to learn one little thing at a time. Pick what is most important to you. For me it was macros and white balance because that affects your photos the most. IMHO
I guess my eye is just untrained, because all of these pictures (here in the thread) have looked GREAT to me! LOL
here is one I took a little while ago, the red is right on, at least on my monitor.
these colors are accurate too. :-)
carnations....
We got over an inch of rain the last two days. Yippee! Made the perennial Dianthus bloom. They are such a bright electric/neon pink.
Love that neon pink Dianthus! Do you get much rebloom after the first big flush? Here is an Achillea that is blooming for me now. I think it may be Paprika.
Susan
Here is a strange view of a blue Delphinium I added this year, a blue and pale yellow columbine that is about to the point of needing cut back and the rosy blooms of Heuchera Swirling Fantasy. I was looking down on them from my porch when this was taken. Delphinium don't ususally make it through the winters for me, but I still add a couple of them each year and just hope for the best.
Susan
Jackmanii Clematis. Not a fancy one, but boy does it bloom!
Susan
Susan, after the full flush the dianthus just gives a couple of blooms off and on all summer.
I love delphiniums but they always get crown rot for me and only last a year or two. I plant lots of Larkspur instead.