When I am photographing plants, I often favour my macro lens in order to capture the details of flowers. Today I made a conscious decision to use a different lens in order to capture the bigger picture. I enjoyed playing around with angles so that I could capture detail in the foreground, but give a sense of space and perspective in the background.
Category: Bulbs
Planting bulbs in your garden or in pots will guarantee surprises through the seasons. There is nothing quite so therapeutic as we go into winter as planting spring bulbs. Here are some of my favourites…
Early Risers
Hyacinths are the easiest of bulbs to grow in the garden. They are reliably hardy and perennial, and bulk up each year. Just remember to wear gloves when planting, and don’t touch your face!
A Certain Flair
There are some rather wonderful words for describing the shape of a flower’s stigma. ‘Plumoso’ describes a feathered shape. ‘Lobado’ describes a lobed shape. There is conicoid (conical), discoide (disc-shaped) and con pelos (with hair). I would describe a crocus stigma as plumoso. Lucky crocus.
Bumbling
I love watching any type of bee, but bumblebees are especially endearing. Especially when they dive nose-first into a flower and tip up their furry bums.
Ice Queen
You can see the intricacy of the markings. They remind me of a school chromatography experiment when we made an ink spot on blotting paper and then dipped it in water. The pigments in the ink slowly separated and spread out over the blotting paper.
Leeds Castle’s Secret Gardens
I don’t know about you, but when I visit a garden over and over again, I tend to go in exactly the same direction in the same order as every other time I have visited. Somehow, in the nine years I have been visiting Leeds Castle, I have managed never to have noticed Lady Baillie’s Mediterranean Garden.
You in your small corner…
The words of this song keep coming back to me as I find little groups of crocuses around the garden.
Could this be the most photogenic flower ever?
Like with so many spring bulbs, you spend hours watching over them, singing to them, telling them little stories, begging them to open. Then just as your back is turned (you have put the kettle on to boil, or just nipped to the loo), TA DA! The most magnificent flower has sprung open!
An Act of Faith
Gardening is an act of faith. Most of what you are doing is going to take a while to come to fruition. Whether it is sowing seeds, planting bulbs, taking a cutting, even pruning…you have to have faith that your actions are going to lead to something good.
Fresh Minty Green
There are so many signs of spring, but we can’t quite shake off winter. It’s like we have a fifth season, spr-inter. Its colours are minty-fresh, but with a hint of honey…
10 Thoughts on New Growth
How is it, when all the others are much bigger, much stronger, more colourful, more showy… how is it that the humble little snowdrop is the bravest of all?
Dig Deep
This has been a rough old autumn. Not because of the weather, but because of the political climate. Never have I been more affected by news stories (see Direct Action). The personal has most definitely been political. So where do I seek refuge? You guessed it! There is nothing like a spot of digging to…
