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Archive for the ‘Gardening’ Category

Wild-looking flower

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on July 21, 2021| 28 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.

Cahaba lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Stages of life

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , 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.

lotus

Lotus seed pod

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Lotus positions

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , 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.

 

lotus

lotus

lotus

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Asiatic lilies

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , 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.

Asiatic lily

Asiatic lily

Asiatic lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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First lily

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , 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.

lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Colorful irises

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Landscape, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on May 11, 2021| 22 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.

bearded iris

bearded iris

bearded iris

bearded iris

bearded iris

bearded iris

photo assistant

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Bearded Irises

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, tagged , , , , , , 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.

bearded iris

bearded iris

bearded iris

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Fire-breathing dragon

Posted in fantasy, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on April 13, 2021| 11 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.

parrot tulip

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Lady Jane tulip

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , 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.

Lady Jane tulip

petals

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Parrot tulips

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , 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.

 

parrot tulip

parrot tulip

parrot tulips

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Are we there yet?

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , 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?”

tulip

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

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More grape hyacinths

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , 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.

Grape Hyacinth

Grape Hyacinth

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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First spring tulip

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , 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.

tulip

tulip

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Unusual grape hyacinths

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , 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.

 

Muscari azureum

Muscari azureum

Muscari azureum

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Snowdrop in March

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on March 15, 2021| 12 Comments »

My neighbor and photography mentor Cindy Dyer has a new raised flower bed in her back yard and the first flowers to appear in it are some tiny Snowdrops (g. Galanthus), including this one that I photographed on Friday. For me there is something really beautiful about the simple shape and restrained colors of this little flower. I have seen snowdrops appear much earlier at other locations, including in 2012 when I photographed some in bloom in late December—see my blog posting entitled Winter Snowdrops.

snowdrop

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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First crocuses

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , on March 14, 2021| 29 Comments »

I do not have my own garden, but my friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer has a wonderful one that I visit often during the growing season. I was thrilled on Friday to see that one of her crocuses is blooming, the first one that I have seen this year. A second crocus had not yet opened, but I was so excited to see these colorful signs of spring that I photographed it too.

During the colder months of the year I shoot almost exclusively with a long telephoto zoom lens. For these images, however, I switched to a 60mm macro lens, a sign of the changing seasons—during the summer months my favorite lens is my 180mm macro lens. As the leaves start to reappear to on the trees, I will be photographing fewer birds and will be focusing on smaller, close-in subjects like butterflies and dragonflies, hopefully within a month or so.

crocus

crocus

crocus

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Green bee and aster

Posted in Bees, Flowers, Gardening, Insects, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Uncategorized, wildlife, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 8, 2020| 14 Comments »

My eyes were attracted to the pinkish-colored asters when I spotted them last Friday at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge and I moved closer to investigate them more closely. I was delighted to see several green metallic sweat bees (g. Agapostemon) busily gathering pollen. I have always loved the coloration of these sweat bees that are so much smaller than the bumblebees and carpenter bees that I am more used to seeing.

The sweat bees were in almost constant motion and I got a little dizzy as I tried to track their circular movement around the center of the little flowers. I was happy that I was able to get a few shots in which the speckled eyes of the bees are visible—you may want to double-click on the images to enlarge them and see this cool little detail.

Asters generally appear in my area in late summer and early fall, another sign that the seasons are starting to change. I am not ready to let go of summer, though I must confess that I enjoy the somewhat cooler weather that we have been experiencing, especially during the nighttime hours.

sweat bee

sweat bee

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Glad it is August

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Inspiration, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on August 2, 2020| 21 Comments »

July was a crazy month no matter how you look at it. Who knows what the new month will hold for us all? When I checked the garden of my friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer a few days ago, I was thrilled to see that some of her gladiolas are now in bloom, symbolic of the new life and growth that is still possible in our own lives, even in these troubled times.

gladiolas

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Double tiger lilies

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on July 26, 2020| 18 Comments »

I was a little shocked when I first spotted the newest flowers blooming in the garden of my neighbor Cindy Dyer—they looked like some mutant variant of a lily, with octopus-like tendrils coming out of the center of the spotted flowers. Cindy had previously told me that she had planted some tiger lilies that she had bought at a half-price clearance sale, but it is safe to say that these are not like any tiger lilies that I had ever seen.

Yesterday I learned that these are double Tiger Lilies (Lilium Lancifolium ‘Flore Pleno’), a variety that has double the normal number of petals. Wow. It looks like only one set of petals had opened for the lily in the first image, with more to come soon. The flower in the second and third photos is at an ever earlier stage of growth, but I was intrigued by its exotic shape, colors, and patterns. Every time that I look at the middle image, I see a dragon’s head with an open mouth, but perhaps my imagination is simply in overdrive these days.

While taking the photos, I noted the two little gray things on the stem in the second and third images. I did not investigate more closely, but Cindy believes that they are insects of some sort.

 

tiger lily

tiger lily

tiger lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Pink lilies in July

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on July 21, 2020| 6 Comments »

The garden of my neighbor and photography mentor Cindy Dyer continues to provide me with an almost inexhaustible supply of subject matter for my photography. Among the flowers currently blooming are some beautiful pink lilies. The first image shows a pair of pink lilies blooming in a container in Cindy’s backyard garden. One of the coolest things about that part of her garden is that there are all kinds of decorative elements scattered everywhere, like the copper-colored butterfly in the background of the image.

The world changes and is often abstractly beautiful when viewed through a macro lens, as you can see in the second photo below featuring an extreme close-up view of a lily. I am utterly entranced as I explore the shapes, colors, and textures in the image, unconstrained by practical considerations like figuring out what it is.

pink lily

pink lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Sunday color

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on July 12, 2020| 22 Comments »

It is early Sunday morning, almost two hours before sunrise, still dark and silent outdoors. What shall I post? Some bloggers prepare their postings well in advance, but I tend to select photos and decide on an approach only when I am ready to begin composing the actual posting. I do keep a mental catalogue of candidate images that I have shot recently, but my final selection is frequently influenced by my mood and feelings.

This morning I am thinking of color and composition, a consequence perhaps of my recent efforts with watercolor. As many of you know, watercolor painting often forces you to mix your own colors, a critical factor if you want to create a mood or match something in real life. So, for example, to paint the flesh of a watermelon recently, I had to combine two different shades of red and to paint some gray stormy clouds, I had to mix a blue and a reddish brown.

I was thinking of colors when I spotted these beautiful daylilies on Thursday in the garden of my friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer. I was struck by the deep red of the flowers and the yellow-tipped stamens that reminded me of flickering matches. I also really liked the triangular arrangement of the three flowers that presented itself. It is so much harder to compose an image with multiple subjects than one with a single subject, which is why you will rarely see me photograph groups of anything.

I hope that you enjoyed this little burst of color as you start (or continue) your Sunday activities. Have a blessed day and be sure to keep an eye out for the wonderful colors in your life.

daylilies

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Hidden garden

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on July 9, 2020| 15 Comments »

A little over a month ago I did a posting entitled ‘Flower wall’ that featured a hanging panel of flowers and plants on the interior portion of the fence that encloses the back yard of my friend Cindy Dyer. At that time the plants were just getting established and one of my viewers asked me to do a follow-up post when they all fill in.

As I went into Cindy’s backyard garden this morning to take an update photo of the hanging garden, I decided to try to capture the atmosphere that she has created in this small space. We live in a townhouse community and each of us has a tiny space behind our houses that is enclosed with a privacy fence. Cindy lives in an end unit (as do I) and her yard is slightly larger than the inner units, with a neighbor on only one side.

The first image shows the current state of the hanging garden. Some of the plants have grown more quickly than others, giving the wall a slightly wild look that I really like. I deliberately framed this shot wider than necessary to show you part of the rest of the garden that Cindy has decorated with statues, figurines, and all kinds of plants and flowers. It feels like a secret refuge, a world apart from one of the main streets in our neighborhood that is barely visible through the slats of the fence.

The second image shows a portion of the fence that separates her yard from that of her neighbor. Here she has created an almost meditative space featuring a wall hanging and a spectacular bird bath that rises up out of a bed of hostas. If you click on the image and examine the details, you will see that Cindy had decorated the blue grid with dozens of colorful dragonflies.

As you can readily see from these two images, Cindy is amazingly creative and is an incredible gardener and designer. You might have thought that I was a little over the top in yesterday’s blog anniversary posting in which I expressed my admiration and gratitude for all that she does to inspire me—here is visual evidence of why those words were well-deserved.

cindy's garden

cindy's garden

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Almost tropical

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , , on July 2, 2020| 11 Comments »

The lilies blooming in the garden of my friend and neighbor Cindy Dyer are so lush and the colors so vivid that they seem almost tropical.

lily

lily

lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Finding love in June

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Humor, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on June 29, 2020| 12 Comments »

The alien-looking plant in the first photo is a seedpod of ‘Love in a mist’ (Nigella damascena), one of my favorite flowers, that I spotted during a short visit last Monday to Green Spring Gardens with my friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. It was a little late in the season, but I managed to spot a few flowers still in bloom, as shown in the second image. This flower is typically blue, but love-in-a-mist also comes in shades of white, pink, and lavender.

When I did a little research on-line, 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 learned 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.

This is one of the few local places where I know I can find this exotically beautiful flower. If you want to see love-in-a-mist yourself, you should probably go to a large garden. Otherwise you could waste a lot of your time looking for love in all the wrong places.

 

love in a mist

Love in a mist

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Peruvian Daffodil

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on June 22, 2020| 14 Comments »

When I spotted this strange-looking flower yesterday in the garden of my photography mentor and neighbor Cindy Dyer, I had no idea what it was—she informed me that it was a Peruvian Daffodil (Hymenocallis narcissiflora). This flower, according to information at gardeningknowhow.com, is native to the Andes of Peru and is a member of the daffodil and amaryllis family, Amaryllidaceae.  Its flowers resemble a “spidery” version of these flowers, as you can see in my photos. The elongated, sometimes curved, petals have led to the plant’s alternate common names, “spider lily” and “basket flower.”

Further exploration on the internet led me to wonder if this is actually the hybrid version known as Hymenocallis x festalis, a hybrid of the aforementioned Peruvian Daffodil as the female parent and the Hymenocallis. longipetala, another Peruvian flower, as the male parent, as detailed in an article by the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture.  Fearing that I would get sucked deeper into the world of plant ancestry, I stopped my research there.

Personally, I think that the name “spider lily” fits best and maybe that that is the name I will use in the future to refer to this crazy-looking flower.

 

Peruvian Daffodil

Peruvian Daffodil

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Lilies in early June

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, Summer, tagged , , , , , , on June 10, 2020| 7 Comments »

It is lily season now in the garden of my neighbor and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. Here are a few photos that I took yesterday morning of some of the lilies blooming in her beautiful garden. It is always reassuring to know that I do not have to travel far to find colorful subjects to photograph—as a photographer and graphic designer, Cindy chooses flowers to plant that she know are photogenic.

lily

lily

lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Flower wall

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , on June 4, 2020| 19 Comments »

How do you grow a lot of plants in a small space? My amazingly creative friend, neighbor, and photography mentor Cindy Dyer decided to take advantage of vertical space and created this incredible wall of flowers and plants on the interior portion of the fence that encloses her back yard. Wow!

I do not know all of the details about how she set it up, but I think that the material, which Cindy describes as “felt-like,” has sewn-in pouches into which she inserted all of the plants and flowers. She mentioned to me that she had mixed some water-storing crystals in with the potting soil to reduce water stress and plans to water the wall regularly.

flower wall

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

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Stargazer Lilies

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on June 2, 2020| 12 Comments »

We have started a new month and new flowers are blooming in the garden of my friend and photography mentor Cindy Dyer. Iris season has almost ended, but more lilies are opening each day. Today’s featured star is the bold, fragrant oriental hybrid known as the Stargazer Lily (Lilium ‘Stargazer’). Wow—there is nothing subtle about this flower that overwhelms both the eyes and the nose.

The words “star gazer” bring to mind some words from one of my favorite songs, The Rainbow Connection as sung by Kermit the Frog. “What’s so amazing that keeps us stargazing and what do we think we might see? Someday we’ll find it, that rainbow connection, the lover, the dreamer, and me.” Now more than ever, we all need hope.

I want to share with you the concluding portion of a prayer distributed to us by our local Episcopal bishop yesterday, a National Day of Mourning and Lament for those who have died of COVID-19. “God of all hope, God of all goodness, we are a people hurting, lost and divided. Our world seems a strange and foreign land, our days a blur of separation and isolation. Gather us to your very heart as we pray for our nation, receive all who have died into the fulness of your heaven, guide the hands of all who serve others. Bless our efforts to love all people in concrete action and, in your powerful ways and in your perfect time, make us whole for the sake of a world so desperately in need of You. Amen.”

Stargazer Lily

Stargazer Lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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First lilies of the year

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , on May 30, 2020| 19 Comments »

The irises in the garden of my neighbor Cindy Dyer have mostly faded, but her lilies are starting to flower. I believe that this beauty is an Asiatic lily, the second lily bloom of the season in her garden with many more to follow.

I captured this image late one morning this week as the rain was beginning to taper off and the colors were wonderfully saturated. I also love the multiple raindrops on the flowers—these are a few of my favorite things.

Asiatic lily

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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Studio-like irises—take two

Posted in Art, Flowers, Gardening, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , on May 16, 2020| 18 Comments »

A week ago I did a posting called Studio-like irises that featured photos of bearded irises shot against a background of a white foamcore board. This week on Thursday my photography mentor Cindy Dyer and I photographed some more of the irises in her garden, this time against a black background. Cindy had obtained some black velvet-like material with an adhesive backing that she affixed to the back of the white foamcore board. Normally this material is used for jewelry displays, but it worked perfectly to highlight the forms and colors of these beautiful flowers.

Here are a few selected shots from our little photoshoot. Although we had a consistent background, we were moving in and out of the sunlight and shadows and I had to constantly change mycamera settings—we even had a few raindrops fall on us while we were taking photos. Cindy and her husband have three cats and when I opened up my images in Photoshop I learned that velvet serves as a magnet for cat hair.

If you like the look of these shots, you should check out the posting that Cindy did on her blog that features seven fabulous photos, including several colorful iris species not shown below.

bearded iris

bearded iris

bearded iris

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

 

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A few more flowers

Posted in Flowers, Gardening, Macro Photography, Nature, Photography, spring, tagged , , , , , , , on May 14, 2020| 21 Comments »

I often feel a bit overwhelmed when I visit a public garden—there are so many flowers all around vying for my attention. I am rarely attracted to large clusters of flowers, but instead tend to gravitate toward individual flowers that I can photograph up close with my macro lens.

Here are three of the flowers that I photographed during a recent photographic foray to nearby Green Spring Gardens with my friend Cindy Dyer. The first is a spiderwort (g. Tradescantia), a flower that I love for its simple geometric shape. I am not sure if the plant in the second photo, some species of allium, counts as a flower, but I love the way that the partially open “bud” reveals the complex structure inside. The final flower is a simple viola that I spotted amidst a bed of green ground cover—like pansies, violas always make me smile.

spiderwort

allium

viola

© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.

 

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