Gardening | Mike Powell

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Lilies in June

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Asiatic lilies, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy's garden, daylilies, lilies, Runnymeade on June 16, 2022| 9 Comments »

Lilies are now blooming in the garden of my neighbor, Cindy Dyer, who is also my photography mentor and muse. There are all kind of lilies there, including daylilies, Asiatic lilies, and giant white ones. Cindy deliberately likes to plant flowers that she knows will be photogenic.

I always feel overwhelmed when trying to photograph groups of anything, so I naturally gravitate to close-ups of individual flowers, focusing in on details that grab my eyes. Sometimes it is shapes, while at other times it may be colors or textures. Here are a few photos from my visit on Tuesday to Cindy’s garden, my impressions of some of the beautiful lilies that I encountered.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Spiderwort

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, g. Tradescantia, green spring gardens, spiderwort, Tamron 180mm on June 6, 2022| 9 Comments »

I love the triangular shape of Spiderwort plants (genus Tradescantia). I tend to think of spiderworts as being a bluish-purple in color, but was delighted to discover them blooming in a variety of colors during a recent visit to Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historical garden near where I live. I think my favorite color combination may be the one in the middle photo, with the white flowers and the purple “fuzz” in the center.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Love-in-a-mist

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, green spring gardens, Love-in-a-mist, Nigella damascena, Tamron 180mm on May 31, 2022| 24 Comments »

During a recent trip to Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historic garden near where I live, I was delighted to see that Love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena) was in bloom. Love-in-a-mist is a flower that looks like it came from outer space, with wild tendrils shooting out of its middle and green spiky vegetation surrounding it. Like many forms of love, the flower simultaneously looks to be both inviting and threatening.

I find this flower to be incredibly beautiful and exotic and it is one of my favorites. Typically Love-in-a-mist is blue, but it also comes in shades of white, pink, and lavender. Many flowers lose our interest after they have bloomed, but I find the seedpods of Love-in-a-mist to at least as intriguing as the flower itself, as you can see in the final photo.

When I did a little research I learned that the striped, balloon-shaped object that I call a seedpod, is actually an inflated capsule composed of five fused true seedpods, according to an article by Wisconsin Horticulture. I also discovered that the thorny-looking spikes that make up the “mist,” which are not sharp, despite their appearance, are technically bracts, a specialized kind of leaves.

I smile whenever I use the name of this flower—we can always use more Love, whether it comes in a mist, in the sunshine, or even in a downpour.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Prime time for bearded irises

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, iris, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, iris, Runnymeade, Tamron 180mm on May 7, 2022| 3 Comments »

It is prime time for the bearded irises in the garden of my dear friend and fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. There are several dozen irises in bloom now in multiple colors, including these beauties, and it looks like even more flowers will be blooming soon.

Beauty is everywhere.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Arisaema sikokianum, Canon 50D, Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, Tamron 180mm, Vienna VA on May 6, 2022| 15 Comments »

Some of the coolest looking plants that I saw last Saturday at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens were Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit flowers (Arisaema sikokianum). There is something so alien and exotic about this plant that it stopped me in my tracks when I first spotted it.

According to the Plant Delights Nursery, Inc. website, the dark pitcher and two five-lobed leaves of this plant emerge on a 12 inch tall (30 cm) fleshy stalk from an underground tuber in early spring. As the pitcher opens, it reveals a swollen, pure white, protruding spadix that provides a dramatic contrast to the purple of the pitcher.

The Japanese Jack-in-the-Pulpit is closely related to the Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), which, according to Wikipedia, is common to the eastern United States. I checked the range map and the Jack-in-the-Pulpit can be found in Virginia where I live, though I have not yet spotted one. When I looked at photos of the American species, it looks fairly similar to the Japanese variant, but the spadix, the part that is the “Jack” in the name, is darker in color and the pitcher more closely matches the leaves. Check out this blog posting by Steve Gingold to see a beautiful photo of a Jack-in-the-Pulpit growing wild in his area of New England.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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White Bleeding Hearts

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Bleeding Hearts, Canon 50D, Dicentra spectabilis alba, Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, Tamron 180mm, Vienna VA, white Bleeding Hearts on May 5, 2022| 15 Comments »

I am a bit of a romantic, so my eyes are immediately drawn to the heart-shaped blooms of Bleeding Heart flowers whenever they are present in a springtime garden. Most of the time they are reddish in color, as their name suggests, but they also come in other colors. I spotted these beautiful White Bleeding Hearts (Dicentra spectabilis alba) last Saturday at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens.

I was fortunate to be able to get close enough for the first photo to be able to focus on the delicate shape of a single flower. Somehow the little wings on the hearts make me think of angels or maybe the little cherubs that we associate with Valentine’s Day. The second image gives you an idea of the way that these flowers grow in rows, suspended from tiny filaments from a stalk, twisting and turning in the wind.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Spring columbines

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Canon 50D, columbine, columbine flowers, genus Aquilegia, Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, Strawberry Ice Cream, Tamron 180mm, Vienna VA on May 3, 2022| 6 Comments »

I love the shape and colors of columbine flowers that appear in many of the gardens that I visit during the spring. According to Wikipedia, the genus name for these flowers Aquilegia is derived from the Latin word for eagle (aquila), because of the shape of the flower petals that are said to resemble an eagle’s claw. The common name “columbine” comes from the Latin for “dove”, due to the resemblance of the inverted flower to five doves clustered together.

I spotted several spectacular columbines during a visit to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia last Saturday. The purple columbine was in the middle of a flower bed and I could not get very close to it. I was really happy though that I had to shoot from a longer distance away than normally, because I able to capture some of the shadowy shapes of the ferns in the background.

I did manage to get quite a bit closer to the pretty pink columbine. I smiled when I saw a marker that indicated that this variety is called “Strawberry Ice Cream.” I now have an overwhelming urge to buy some strawberry ice, one of the many ice cream flavors that I love.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Spider on snowflake

Posted in Arachnids, Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Photography, spiders, spring, wildlife, tagged Canon 50D, Cindy Dyer, Leucojum vernum, Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, Snowflake, Spring Snowflake, Tamron 180mm, Vienna VA on May 2, 2022| 7 Comments »

As we were photographing some Spring Snowflake flowers (Leucojum vernum) on Saturday at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, my dear friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer noticed what looked like a spider’s leg on the side of one of the flowers and asked me to go around to the other side of the flower to investigate.

Sharp-eyed Cindy was right—I spotted this tiny spider clinging to the side of the snowflake and was delighted that I was able to capture this image of it.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Red trillium

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Photography, spring, tagged Canon 50D, Meadowlark Botanical Gardens, Red Trillium, Tamron 180mm, trillium, Trillium erectum, VA, Vienna on May 1, 2022| 10 Comments »

I love the rich color, velvet-like texture, and geometric shape of this beautiful little flower that I spotted yesterday at Meadowlark Botanical Gardens in Vienna, Virginia. I believe that this is a Red Trillium (Trillium erectum). According to Wikipedia, Red Trilliums are also known as wake robin, bethroot, and stinking benjamin.

I was curious about the name “stinking benjamin,” so I searched on-line and learned that Red Trilliums produce fetid or putrid odors purported to attract carrion fly and beetle pollinators. Some describe the odor as similar to that of a wet dog—I did not get close enough to verify personally the accuracy of this assertion.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Pseudo studio iris photos

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Portraits, spring, studio photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm macro, Cindy's garden, irises, Runnymeade on April 27, 2022| 19 Comments »

It is now the season for irises. All kinds of irises are starting to pop open in the garden of my dear friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. We are neighbors in a townhouse community in Northern Virginia, which means there is relatively little space for gardening, but Cindy manages to pack an amazing amount of flower power into her limited area. Fortunately, she and her husband, who is also a Michael, live in an end-unit, so they have a bit more space than the interior units.

Cindy likes to select flowers to grow that she knows will be photogenic and love to pore over the flower catalogues on line. Our challenge is to figure out how to capture the beauty of these carefully selected flowers in the crowed garden. One of Cindy’s techniques is to use a small artificial background to help to isolate the flower. Often she uses a white foam core board to which she has attached a piece of black velvet-like material. She can then create studio-like images with a black or white background, depending on the flower.

This technique requires two people, because it is almost impossible to hold the background in place and frame a shot at the same time. I took these iris photos yesterday while Cindy held the background in place for me and then we reversed positions. In some of the images it looks like I was using some kind of studio lighting, but it was all natural night on a somewhat cloudy day that diffused the light nicely.

You don’t really need any special equipment to create this effect—you could use almost anything for a background. The day before, our improvised background was a collapsible black storage cube from IKEA that Cindy had just given me. The final photo, taken by Cindy with her iPhone, shows me holding that black cube and gives you a sense of the garden environment and how the technique is used.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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A few more tulips

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Photography, spring, tulip, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, Cindy's garden, Lady Jane tulip, Runnymeade, tulip, tulip "Lady Jane", Tulipa clusiana var. 'Lady Jane' on April 5, 2022| 9 Comments »

As we move deeper into spring, more and more flowers are popping up in the garden of my neighbor, fellow photographer Cindy Dyer. It is a fun adventure to walk over to the garden every few days to see what new bits of beauty have sprung forth out of the earth.

One of my favorites that I look forward to seeing each spring is the Lady Jane tulip (Tulipa clusiana var. ‘Lady Jane’), featured in the first photo below. It is a small tulip with pointed petals and a delicate pink and white coloration.

The red tulips are a bit more traditional in terms of their shape and coloration. I love to explore them from all angles and their bright, cheery color is a joy to behold.

Some more tulip buds are beginning to mature and it looks like there may be yellow tulips next. Spring is such a beautiful season.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Coming attractions

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, Cindy's garden, closed tulip, Runnymeade, tulip, tulip bud on March 28, 2022| 5 Comments »

In the springtime we often watch and wait in the garden, anticipating the beauty that is to come. Sometimes, as was the case with these tulip buds, we have a sneak preview of the coming colors, but often the blooms take us by surprise. I love those kinds of surprises.

As many of you know, I do not have my own garden. However, fellow photographer Cindy Dyer is one of my neighbors and she has an amazing garden, full of fun flowers to photograph.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Grape Hyacinths

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, Cindy's garden, Grape hyacinth, Muscari, Runnymeade on March 27, 2022| 9 Comments »

One of the early signs of spring is the emergency of the tiny stalks of Grape Hyacinths (g. Muscari). As their name suggest, these spiky little flowers look a bit like bunches of grapes. Most of the time grape hyacinths are bluish in color, but they come in other colors too and sometimes, as you can see in the second photo, there may be multiple colors on the same flower stalk.

I captured these images in the garden of my dear friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer. Cindy is used to seeing me skulking about in her garden and I usually am able to keep her informed about what is blooming in her own garden.

Using my short macro lens, I was able to capture some of the interesting patterns of these grape hyacinths. In the first image you can see how the little “grapes” grow in a spiral pattern. The second image shows how the “grapes” open up at their ends as they mature. I really like the way that both images feature the raised three-petalled impression on so many of the grapes—the shape looks almost like it was embossed.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Ladybug in March

Posted in Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, spring, wildlife, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, Cindy's garden, Harmonia axyridis, ladybird, ladybug, Multicolored Asian Lady Beetle, Runnymeade on March 26, 2022| 10 Comments »

As I was scanning my neighbor’s garden for new growth yesterday, a small bit of bright orange caught my eye. I moved closer to see what it was and was shocked to find a tiny ladybug crawling around one of the plants.

The ladybug was pretty active, moving up and down the leaf, so it was challenging to get a shot of it. Eventually, though, my patience paid off and I was able to capture this image. Later in the year photos like this will become more commonplace, but during the month of March I am overjoyed whenever I have a chance to photograph an insect.

I did not get a good look at the face of this insect, so I cannot tell if it is an Asian Lady Beetle (Harmonia axyridis) or one of the native ladybugs, which are less common in most areas. Whatever the case, there is something whimsical about ladybugs that makes me smile, so I was happy to spot this one.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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First tulip of the year

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Canon 60mm macro, Cindy Dyer, Runnymeade, tulip on March 19, 2022| 16 Comments »

I spotted this tiny red tulip yesterday morning in the garden of my dear friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer, my first tulip sighting of the year. One of Cindy’s passions is gardening and she deliberately plants a lot of flowers that she believes will be photogenic.

Last fall she planted bulbs for some large, frilly, multi-colored tulips that she hopes will bloom later this year. (See my posting from last spring entitled Fire-breathing dragon to see an example of one of those crazy-looking parrot tulips.) I will be looking for those exotic flowers, but I have to say that am often drawn more to the simple, spare elegance of a single bloom, like today’s tulip.

When I first started to get serious about my photography almost ten years ago, I imitated the type of photographs that Cindy was taking, with a lot of emphasis on macro shots of flowers. Cindy taught me a lot about photography during those early days, lessons that have stuck with me as I have ventured into other areas of photography.

One of those lessons was about the value of a well-composed, graphic image, like today’s simple shot. Anyone, in theory, could have taken this shot, but they would have had to be willing to get on their hands and knees in the dirt to do so, another one of Cindy’s lessons. (If you want to see more of Cindy’s tips, check out her article How to Grow Your Garden Photography Skills that was featured several years ago on the NikonUSA.com website.)

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Crocuses

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, spring, Winter, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, crocus, crocuses, crocuses in bloom, Runnymeade on March 9, 2022| 6 Comments »

Pushing out of the still dormant winter earth, several crocuses in the garden of my dear friend Cindy Dyer were shining brightly yesterday, a hopeful sign of the spring beauty that is yet to come.

For the first image, I shielded the sun with my body to avoid the harsh highlights that the sunlight was creating. I then changed my shooting position so that the sunlight was streaming from another angle, which caused the yellow parts of the flower to glow.

Please continue to pray for the people of Ukraine and for all those affected by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Snowdrops in January

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Winter, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, edelweiss, g. Galanthus, green spring gardens, snowdrop, snowdrops, Tamron 180mm, The Sound of Music on January 25, 2022| 22 Comments »

In the deepest darkest days of winter, there is still new growth, like these snowdrop flowers (g. Galanthus) that I spotted yesterday at Green Spring Gardens, a county-run historic garden not far from where I live.

I decided to mix things up a bit and put my macro lens on my camera for the first time in months, hoping that I might find flowers in bloom. What can I possibly find that would be flowering in late January? We have had over a foot (30 cm) of snow already this month and some frigid temperatures, a harsher winter than in recent years. I knew from past experience, though, that there was a good chance that some snowdrop flowers would be in bloom—my challenge was to find them.

I searched in vain in flowerbed after flowerbed, until finally I found several small patches of these pretty white flowers. The words to the song Edelweiss from The Sound of Music, one of my favorite musicals, came to mind. Although edelweiss is a completely different flower, the words of the song seemed to fit my snowdrops so well.

“Every morning you greet me
Small and white, clean and bright
You look happy to meet me
Blossom of snow, may you bloom and grow
Bloom and grow forever.”

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Wild-looking flower

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged Cahaba lily, Canon 50D, Hymenocallis coronaria, Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, shoals spider-lily, Tamron 180mm, Washington D.C. on July 21, 2021| 29 Comments »

I have previously featured water lilies and lotuses that I photographed during a trip earlier in July to Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens. Those flowers were beautiful, of course, but the flower that really grabbed my attention was this alien-looking one that looks like a spider or a Portuguese man o’ war. From what I have been able to find on the internet, I believe that this is a Cahaba lily (Hymenocallis coronaria), an aquatic, perennial flowering plant species that is also known as a shoal lily, or shoals spider-lily.

I was quite a challenge to try to figure out how to photograph this wild-looking flower that spreads out in all directions. I think that this angle gives you a pretty good look at all of the plant parts without being too distracted by the busy background. In many ways the image becomes an almost an abstract one, because the viewer initially takes in the shapes and colors without immediately being able to tell what the main object is.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Stages of life

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged Canon 50D, Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, lotus, lotus bud, lotus flower, lotus seed pod, Tamron 180mm, Washington D.C. on July 15, 2021| 20 Comments »

I captured this image last Saturday at Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens and love the way that it shows lotuses at various stages of development, from budding to flowering to turning into seed pods. I have included a close-up shot of a seed pod, in case you have never looked closely at one. These seed pods always get a mixed reaction from my friends—some find them to be fascinating, while others find them to be creepy.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Lotus positions

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged Canon 50D, Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, lotus, lotus bud, lotus center, lotus seed pod, Tamron 180mm, Washington D.C. on July 12, 2021| 17 Comments »

On Saturday I traveled with a few fellow photographers to Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, a National Park Service site in Washington D.C. whose main attractions are the the numerous water lilies and lotuses in a series of interlocked cultivated ponds. It was tough for me to figure out how to tackle photographic subjects like these and I must confess that I spent a fair amount of time chasing after the numerous dragonflies that were present at the park.

Here are a few shots of some of the lotuses that I encountered that day. The first image is a peek through the petals at the distinctive seed pod in the center of one lotus. The second shot shows a lotus in full bloom. Only about half of the lotus plants that I encountered were flowering and many of them were beyond the reach of the lens that I was using or were in harsh, direct sunlight, so I was happy to capture this one so well. The final photo shows a lotus bud with petals that are just beginning to open.

I think it is good to push myself sometimes to photograph different subjects and to step outside of my comfort zone. It forces me to think creatively about what I am doing and how I am approaching the subject. Flexibility is a key ingredient in all of this, which seemed appropriate as I was trying to get into the lotus positions.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Asiatic lilies

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged Alexandria VA, Asiatic lilies, Asiatic lily, Canon 50D, Cindy Dyer, Cindy's garden, Runnymeade, Tamron 180mm on June 12, 2021| 12 Comments »

I love the spectacular colors of the Asiatic lilies that are now blooming in the garden of my dear friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer. These brilliant colors, which look almost neon in their intensity, were especially welcome yesterday, when it was gray and rainy the entire day.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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First lily

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, lily, Runnymeade on June 7, 2021| 7 Comments »

Many of the irises have withered in the garden of my dear friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer, but her lilies are now starting to open, like this beauty that I photographed early on Sunday morning. It is hot and humid today, so I did not feel much like venturing outside with my camera. Instead I decided to share this burst of bright color.

Have a wonderful Monday.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Colorful irises

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Landscape, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, bearded irises, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, Runnymeade on May 11, 2021| 24 Comments »

More bearded irises? Yes, I decided to do another posting on the colorful bearded irises in the garden of my neighbor and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. We are probably near the peak period right now and there is a wide variety of irises in bloom. There is only a stem or two of some of the irises that I photographed, each with several blooms, but there is also one patch, shown in the final photo, where there are at least several dozen irises of the same type concentrated in one area.

One of the challenges of photographing these irises is that the background tends to get very cluttered. I have tried to blur the background by choosing my angle of view and camera settings, and the results are ok.

Cindy has come up with a more elegant solution—she photographs them in situ against a black velvet-like background, which requires the assistance of another person to hold the background in place. Usually her husband Michael is drafted, but yesterday in the late afternoon I was an emergency fill-in when the late day light spontaneously prompted her to photograph the irises that were blooming outside of her yard around an electrical junction box. The final photo is one that Cindy took with her iPhone of me in “action.”

What kind of results do you get with this process? Check out Cindy’s blog postings Bearded iris blooming in my garden and Bearded iris (taken last year) to see some samples of the stunning studio-like portraits of these flowers that Cindy has taken.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Bearded Irises

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, tagged Alexandria VA, Bearded Iris, bearded irises, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, Runnymeade on May 3, 2021| 13 Comments »

Although I don’t have my own garden, I am blessed to have a neighbor and friend, Cindy Dyer, who loves to plant photogenic flowers, like these beautiful bearded irises that are now in bloom. Cindy is a self-employed photographer and graphic designer who I consider to be my photography mentor and muse. She and her husband Michael make up the rest of my “pod” that has helped to sustain me through this past pandemic year.

What else does Cindy do? Here is a little extract from the “Stuff About Me” page of her blog.

“Oil and acrylic painting, photography (portraits, glamour shots, nature, macro, floral/botanical, travel), cement leaf casting, crocheting hats like crazy come winter time (what else can a gardener do when it’s cold out?), needle felting, sewing, murals, faux painting, Polaroid transfers (if it’s something crafty, I’ve probably at least tried it once), biblioholic (any topic, you name it—we probably have at least one book on the subject…don’t even begin to guess how many gardening books I’ve amassed!), animal lover—currently three cats…”

You can get a look at some of Cindy’s photography and writing on her blog at cindydyer.wordpress.com. If you want a real treat, though, you should check out the slide show of her portfolio at cindydyer.zenfolio.com, where your eyes will be delighted as you see an amazing series of stunning images.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Fire-breathing dragon

Posted in fantasy, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, dragon, fantasy, fire-breathing dragon, imagination, parrot tulip, Runnymeade, tulip on April 13, 2021| 12 Comments »

Are you the kind of person who sees shapes in the clouds? If so, then perhaps you too may see the shape of a fire-breathing dragon in this amazing parrot tulip that I photographed yesterday in the garden of my dear friend Cindy Dyer. As more of Cindy’s parrot tulips pop open I am becoming convinced that these are the craziest flowers that I have encountered, with all kinds of wild shapes and colors.

I am equally convinced that we all need a little whimsy, fantasy, and child-like fascination in our daily lives. As adults we tend to take ourselves too seriously too often. Wouldn’t it be cool to see the world afresh as a child does, full of excitement and imagination?

Keep your eyes open today—you too might unexpectedly encounter a fire-breathing dragon or equally fanciful creature.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Lady Jane tulip

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, crabapple blossoms, Lady Jane tulip, Runnymeade, Tulipa clusiana var. 'Lady Jane' on April 12, 2021| 10 Comments »

Here’s another beautiful tulip that I spotted yesterday morning in the garden of my good friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer, an elegant variety known as the Lady Jane (Tulipa clusiana var. ‘Lady Jane’) . The pink speckles in the background are fallen petals from her crabapple tree.

As I returned back to my townhouse, I could not help but notice that my front yard was carpeted in pretty pink petals from my crabapple tree, thanks to the gentle wind and light rain in the early morning. I felt like I should be lighting candles and pouring champagne—clearly all of those lovely petals meant that I was loved. Yes, I am an unapologetic romantic.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Parrot tulips

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, parrot tulips, Runnymeade, tulips on April 11, 2021| 13 Comments »

Tulips come in many varieties and my good friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer, who is also my photography mentor, likes to find photogenic ones to plant. For several weeks I have been keeping an eye on her garden, waiting and wondering what type and color tulips would emerge from the green growth that was slowing pushing upward.

This week some of those tulips finally burst open and I was delighted to see that they are Parrot tulips. Parrot tulips are whimsically-shaped, with uncontrolled ruffled edges that somehow make me think they have a bad case of “bed head.”

I captured these images on Friday, a gloomy day punctuated with periodic rain showers. The colors of the tulips are more subdued and do not “pop” as much as they do in the sunlight, but I like the moody feel of the images. The raindrops add a nice touch too—I love to photograph the drops of rain that bead up so beautifully on so many plants and flowers.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Are we there yet?

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Are we there yet?, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, closed tulip, Runnymeade, tulip on March 31, 2021| 7 Comments »

Some of the tulips in the garden of my good friend Cindy Dyer are almost ready to bloom. Already we have a hint of the beauty that is to come—a preview of coming attractions. Many of the flowering trees in my neighborhood recently popped open, seemingly overnight, but others plants, like this tulip, force us to wait patiently for their fully beauty to be revealed.

Delayed gratification is supposed to be good for the soul, but sometimes I feel like a small child cooped up in a car on a long journey, incessantly repeating the same question—”Are we there yet?”

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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More grape hyacinths

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, Grape hyacinth, Muscari, Runnymeade on March 28, 2021| 3 Comments »

I never realized that grape hyacinths (g. Muscari) come in so many different colors and varieties. Here are some that I spotted yesterday morning in the garden of my good friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer. The coloration of the flower in the first photo is what I traditionally associate with grape hyacinths—it is not too much of a stretch to imagine that it looks like a little cluster of grapes. The ones in the second image are much paler and have a bluish rather than purplish tint.

Some of you may recall that I recently featured a grape hyacinth that was different in shape as well as color. If you have not seen that posting, check it out at Unusual grape hyacinths. We have had a lot of rain and warmer weather recently and I can’t to wait to see what pops up in Cindy’s garden next. I usually alert Cindy of newly-opened flowers well before she notices them, a system that Cindy has nicknamed “Powell’s Flower Forecasts.”

Happy Palm Sunday for those who are celebrating that Christian holy day today.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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First spring tulip

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, Runnymeade, tulips on March 25, 2021| 7 Comments »

During growing season I keep a close eye on the garden of my friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer, since I have no gardening skills at all. On Tuesday I took a few shots of one of the cute little red tulips that opened just a few days ago, the first tulips of this spring that I have spotted.

Unlike most tulips, which tend to be spherical in shape, the blooms of these tulips are slender and angular. As I look at the second photo, for example, I see a series of triangles.

Cindy has a new raised bed in the back yard of her townhouse that looks like it has more tulips, judging from the leaves that have popped up from the soil. It will be a surprise for us all when they emerge, because neither she nor her husband can recall what specific varieties they planted last fall.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Unusual grape hyacinths

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged Alexandria VA, Canon 50D, Canon 60mm, Cindy Dyer, Grape hyacinth, Muscari azureum, Runnymeade on March 19, 2021| 23 Comments »

I was totally fascinated by the shapes and colors of this tiny flower that has started to bloom in the garden of my friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer. Cindy told me it was a type of Grape Hyacinth, which confused me a little, because all of the grape hyacinths that I had previously seen were shaped more like grapes than little bells.

I searched on-line and eventually discovered that this flower is Muscari azureum, a species also referred to as Pseudomuscari azureum or Hyacinthella azurea. According to gardenia.net, “Muscari azureum is a lovely, compact china-blue grape hyacinth, with bell-shaped flowers that are not constricted at the mouth. Therefore it looks more plump and fuller than others.”

It was a challenge for me to photograph these flowers because they are so small and grow so close to the ground. Additionally the rather naked early spring garden soil in which the flowers were growing does not make a very photogenic backdrop. I used a macro lens to get close to the flowers for the first two shots in order to isolate them somewhat from the background and focus the viewer’s attention on the intricate details of the flowers.

For the final image, I backed up a little to give you a view of the overall scene and the challenges I described above. As you can probably tell, the two flowers at the far left of the frame were the ones that were featured in the first two photos.

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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