Early Morning

So, we were away on vacation all week, during prime daylily season. I have come back to a profusion of blooms. Not all daylilies look their best first thing in the morning, but I took a few photos with my new camera anyway. (I'll have to go out this afternoon and take some more shots when all the flowers are fully opened.)

'Darkside'



'Bela Lugosi'



'Luxury Lace'



'Cassadiana'



'Destined to See'



'Moonlit Masquerade'



'Nile Crane'



'Moristar Mix'



'Pandora's Box'



'Green Eyes Wink'



'Bama Bound'



'Tuesday'



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Snaps

A couple of cell phone snaps of daylilies that bloomed the day we left on vacation, July 8. I have backdated this post to keep things accurate.

'Always Afternoon'



'Ice Carnival'



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Copyright © all rights reserved. All text and images in this post belong to 1-2-3 Go Garden! at kbgardenblog.blogspot.com.

The Season Has Begun

Although I love the tulips and daffodils of spring, and I have been slowly adding to my collection of irises, when it comes to my garden there is really only one flower for me: the daylily.

I have quite a large and varied selection, though the urge to add more has been fading lately. Not so the urge to see the ones that I have start blooming.

Today as the first week of July draws to a close, two daylilies in my garden had their first blooms, Barbara Mitchell and Grecian Gown.

Poor old 'Barbara Mitchell'. The flowers are wonderfully fragrant still, but this plant has seen better days. It did not even bloom at all last year, so I am glad to see the one scape this year, as that represents an improvement -- even though that scape is not self-supporting (not a good sign).

'Barbara Mitchell'



This is slightly early for 'Grecian Gown', as it usually has its first bloom sometime during the second week of July. (Except for last year, of course, when everything in the garden was two weeks early across the board.)

'Grecian Gown'



I am really loving the performance of this new camera. It takes way better pictures, far faster, than with any previous camera I've had access to. I'm not even tempted to tweak the photos in post-processing, as I am with most other cameras I have used on this blog (with the possible exception of the Sony point and shoot I had way back when -- but that was also before I had photo editing software to work with, so it's kind of a chicken-and-egg thing).
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Copyright © all rights reserved. All text and images in this post belong to 1-2-3 Go Garden! at kbgardenblog.blogspot.com.

New Camera!

A new camera has joined the others in our household: the Pentax K-r. (Non-camera buffs can skip the next paragraph in favour of looking at actual photos taken by the new camera.)

The K-r is a mid-level Pentax, a step above entry-level, but not quite as fancy as a semi-pro model. We currently have a Pentax *ist DL (mid-level) and a Pentax K10d (semi-pro) in our collection. What's great about the new K-r (though not for garden photos) is that it has wonderful low-light performance, with access to very high ISO settings. The K10d is a great camera, but at ISO settings higher than 800 the image quality deteriorates rapidly. The K-r will take photos up to ISO 12800, extendable to 25600. And on top of that it has a very fast auto-focus, noticeably quicker and more accurate than our older cameras (though that's with the brand-new lens that came with the camera -- still haven't tested with our older lenses).

Anyway, back to the reason for this blog's existence: garden photos.

Daylily season has begun with 'Moonglow'. That is, the first blooms appeared on June 30, but I was going away for the long weekend and didn't get a chance to take my usual "first bloom" photos. My husband has taken the following photos as he tested the new camera for us.

'Moonglow'



Penstemon 'Husker Red' is now past its prime, but still looks elegant as it starts to die off.

Penstemon Past Its Prime



The big hostas under the elm, meanwhile, are just starting to bloom.

Hosta



The sempervivum I planted last year survived the winter (they usually do) and is blooming its little heart out. I am not a fan of sempervivum blooms; not that they aren't pretty -- I don't mind them to look at -- it's just that the blooms destroy the plants and I lose my investment, as I end up having to replace them with more the next year.

Sempervivum Blooms



And it's not just blooms that catch my husband's attention when he is out with a camera. He managed to capture a couple of critters (of the miniature variety) at the same time.

Spider on Poppy Leaf



Sweat Bee on Hardy Geranium 'Hokus Pokus'



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Copyright © all rights reserved. All text and images in this post belong to 1-2-3 Go Garden! at kbgardenblog.blogspot.com.

Macro Photos

Only the small flowers are blooming right now. Small flowers are perfect for taking photos of with a dedicated macro lens. (It's no coincidence that the universal symbol for the macro setting on a camera is a stylized flower). So, now that summer has officially arrived, here are some macro photos taken today in my garden.

Plain White Hardy Geranium (Cranesbill)



Hardy Geranium 'Hokus Pokus'



Hardy Geranium 'Splish Splash'



Heuchera and Hardy Geranium



Heuchera



Weeds in my Backyard



Penstemon 'Husker Red'



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Copyright © all rights reserved. All text and images in this post belong to 1-2-3 Go Garden! at kbgardenblog.blogspot.com.

Black and White

The title of today's post comes from the fact that my "so-dark-purple-it's-almost-black" iris, 'Before the Storm', finally bloomed today, as did 'Immortality', a completely white iris (which has been blooming for a while now).

Black and White Irises in My Garden



The rest of the post is just pretty pictures. And almost-pretty pictures. The garden is in a state of... dishevelment... these days. But still, the morning light is almost pretty if I keep the camera angle high enough to avoid showing the weeds that have taken over the flagstones.

Looking East in Morning Light



Here is a closeup of 'Immortality' and a couple more photos of the other irises in my garden. (We'll take a break from poppies today and concentrate on other flowers for a bit.)

'Immortality'



'Supreme Sultan'
(or perhaps something similar)



'Lullaby of Spring'



The honeysuckle is blooming, despite the aphid infestation.

Honeysuckle



And my early daylily is blooming away, oblivious of the fact that it's the only one in my garden doing so.

Daylily 'Little Red Spring Song'



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Copyright © all rights reserved. All text and images in this post belong to 1-2-3 Go Garden! at kbgardenblog.blogspot.com.

Five Zero Zero

Other than the fact that this is my 500th post on this blog, there is nothing special going on. The news is all still irises and poppies.

I am still waiting for the dark, dark iris called 'Before the Storm'.

Before the Storm



The 'Allegro' poppy is finally showing white on the edges, and it has been joined in the bed by a neighbouring bloom.

'Allegro' and Friend



Allegro even looks pretty from the back side these days, so I thought I'd take a photo of that. (Or maybe I'm just running out of unique angles to take photos of poppies from.)

'Allegro' Backside



'Turkenlouis', a rich deep red poppy that I can't ever hope to do justice to with my camera, bloomed today as well.

Looking Down on 'Turkenlouis'



'Turkenlouis' from the Side



When this poppy popped, it left pieces of itself in the vicinity.

Poppy Pieces



And in case anyone thinks this is the last poppy post for the year, I'm afraid it's not true. There are still more new blooms waiting to appear.

Poppy Bud



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Copyright © all rights reserved. All text and images in this post belong to 1-2-3 Go Garden! at kbgardenblog.blogspot.com.

Self-Indulgent Poppy Post

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?" The answer to that is inexorably. (See, I told you this was a self-indulgent post. I'm indulging myself in playing with words, which is something I like to do.)

I only have two poppies blooming in my garden right now. So you'd think I'd only need one photo, like this one, to tell the story.

Two Poppies in My Garden Today



But no, right off the bat I'm posting two versions of the exact same view. (More evidence of self-indulgence.)

A Horizontal View



Poppies are notoriously difficult to photograph, and I might be biased but I think it's worse in shade, as my poppies are now -- even though when I planted them they used to get plenty of sun. Maybe that's part of the reason why the first poppy didn't bloom until June 9, when in previous years it has been several days, and even up to a week earlier. (I don't count last year. The first poppy of 2010 bloomed on May 28, but for some reason everything bloomed early last year.)

So anyway, these two poppies have been snapped from every angle and direction I could think of. I even took several off-centre photos, trying to see what effect it would have on lighting and the ability to pick up detail.

'Manhattan' from the West



'Manhattan' from the East



'Manhattan' from Above



Then there's 'Allegro'. (At least, I think this is 'Allegro'. The petals are supposed to turn white at the edges, but I see no evidence of that yet.)

'Allegro' (?)



The thing that makes poppies hard to photograph is the deep black of their centres. It plays havoc with exposure settings on cameras. Also, my particular camera (Pentax K10D) doesn't handle subtle shading in deeply saturated reds and oranges very well. And what are poppy petals but compilations of subtle shading in deeply saturated reds and oranges? (Another self-indulgent practice: asking rhetorical questions instead of using straightforward sentences to convey information.)

Off-Centre Photo 1



Off-Centre Photo 2



Centred Macro Closeup



And finally, the irony is not lost on me that the most self-indulgent thing about this post is actually calling attention to the self-indulgence in it. But never mind. It's over now.
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Copyright © all rights reserved. All text and images in this post belong to 1-2-3 Go Garden! at kbgardenblog.blogspot.com.