All the Things I Do Not See

As much as I try to compose my photographs before I take them, I never see everything that's in the frame. Sometimes I shoot too quickly when breezes threaten to jiggle a perfectly lit petal or just as I'm about to squeeze the shutter release, two other photographers walk right into the edge of the shot.  Thanks to digital cameras, I can review the images I just took and catch most of the more blatant blunders.  

However, I firmly believe that the invisible garden imps almost always add a little something just before I upload my day's work to the computer.  Then the nasty little buggers wait for me to start post-processing and have a laugh. Did I take that? When? I didn't take that! Why didn't I see that leaf, person, tree, humungous bee?  What's that stick coming out of Ingmar's head?  Did a bird poop on that David Austin Rosa ‘Ausleap’ Sweet Juliet?  When?  You get the idea.

At least I've made progress. Four years ago, this horse photo gave me a lot of experience in corrective post-processing. Along with other, minor problems, there was a big honkin' fence running across the lower third of the horse. It didn't look rural or vintage. It just looked bad. And it took FOREVER to get rid of while leaving all the horse bits and each bloody blade of grass intact. I learned a lot from that and gained a lot of skill. And when I had the chance to have a sort of well-known photographer give me feedback on my work, of course I included that shot.                   

He said it was nice (oh no, kill me now), he said it had a romantic feel to it, and then he asked, "What's that big wooden bench-like thing on the horse's back?"  Huh? Where? Damn. I looked at every inch of that photograph for HOURS.  How did I miss that?   What IS that? "You've got to look at your images more carefully," was what he said. Yup.

Today I was outside with my macro lens taking pictures, hoping for some bloggy inspiration. One patch of Echinacea was doing well, so I set up a tripod and started shooting. Bright, cheery, colorful, blah. Finally, I changed my angle and tried for a dive into the center of just one specimen. I was concentrating so hard on getting all those little florets in the head of the flower in focus that I didn't look at what else was going on, figuring I'd just crop out everything else. However, the imps  had other ideas.

The only shot with the inflorescence in semi-decent focus had petals from a neighboring Coneflower flopping over a third of it.  When did THAT happen?  Did I want to spend an hour trying to clone out those petals and clone the florets back in?  Not really.  I was just about to head outside to reposition and reshoot, when it hit me:  I like this image.  It's a lot more interesting than the one I'd planned.  Well OK then!

 I also spent time experimenting with these Astilbe chinensis. Unlike their feathery cousins that come up in spring, these nubbly ones really get going by mid-summer. I wanted to emphasize the nubbles, but wasn't having a lot of success. They're pretty and look like what they are, but something was missing.  Not that I had a clue what that was.

Once more the imps had their way with me.  When did I take this shot?  Was I standing above the plant, shooting downwards?  Is this a side-on view that needs to be rotated? 

Maybe, but I like it better this way.  It looks like some sort of deep-sea creature, one of those blind ones that swims close to the bottom of the ocean in the dark.  It also expresses what I like best about these Astilbes.

The most common post-processing surprises are insects.  Unless it flies and is a butterfly or has a stinger, I'm just not seeing it.  Here's a Scabiosa, and, as a photograph, what can you say?  Pretty flower, maybe, but I wanted more.

 Then something caught my eye--most of you probably already saw it--so I cropped in to take a better look.

What IS this green-glowing critter?  I really would like to know, by the way.  And getting in this close, I got to share just a tiny bit of his experience of the flower, fall into another world entirely.  Also,  the common name, "Pincushion Flower" makes a lot more sense to me now.  Post-processing surprises can sometimes be the very best sort.  And, yes, my personal imps don't always mean to ruin my day.

 

Winter Flowering: Pink Dawn Viburnum

My three Pink Dawn Viburnums (Viburnum x bodnantense 'Pink Dawn') started to bud on December 24, 2013, but didn't get around to letting a flower peak through until mid-February. 

 

I figured I'd write a blog about them as soon as I had a range of photos, but what to write? I researched (Googled and went through all my books) trying to find something odd or interesting or, at least, oddly interesting, but no luck. 

 

  Early to flower, light fragrance, zones 5-7, 8 or 9--depending on the source--nice fall color, cross between V. farreri and V. grandiflorum, etc. Fine, all fine, but why post photos and info when the info was everywhere? This isn't what I wanted my blog to be.

As I was doing the dishes today, I realized what I could say (this sort of thing always seems to happen when I'm washing the dishes or in the shower. Something about water? Difficulty in holding a pen and dousing a notepad suggests inspiration?) And what I could say is the following:

I love to walk into mature gardens filled with open flowers. All those shapes and all that color is just one enormous, loud "Hi there!" All those "faces" are like friends of-the-moment, made at an especially fun party. The kind of effortless, immediate camaraderie that feels like an unexpected gift.

  

Yeah.  Well.  I love those moments, I do.  But there's something in me--as mostly a Macro photographer--that needs to plan, work ( and suffer ) for longer, perhaps deeper relationships.  I like to take time, get as close as possible to individual plants, destroy my knees, and photograph that conversation.

 So these photos, taken from early bud to last sagging flowers, reflect my relationship with my Pink Dawns over these last few months. 

The buds, with all their fuzzy bits and pink bits and green bits, intrigued and excited me at first.  It was hard to tell what would unfold where.  But the weeks went on and on and my impatience and frustration grew.  Would they never open?  Would they just dry up and just fall off in the cold?

 

Then one morning in February when I walked out into the garden for a bud-check, the fuzzy bits had peeled back and the pink bits had pushed out and open.  Just a few, but enough to give me hope (and a few shots).





However, not longer after, we got slammed by 18 inches of snow (see my March 3rd post for what that looked like).  I couldn't even locate the plants much less the fragile blooms.

 

But when the snow finally melted and the sun came back, the flowers quickly multiplied, with the wind rarely letting them hold still long enough for decent shots! 

  

When the little trumpet blooms were so much paler than the buds it all seemed pointless, until they multiplied and scented the air (if you stuck your nose right into them--easy enough to do when you're on your knees, inches from them). And lastly--at this point--all the buds opened to a sigh and a sag. All that effort. Surely it was worth it.

 

But don't get me wrong. In the right mood, I can definitely enjoy a big, crazy party with lots of superficial relationships!

The Significance of the Insignificant Flower: or, GET CLOSER!

As I've written several times before (see "My Macro Lens and Me"), I photograph with a narrow eye; expansive I am not. Once in awhile I can capture a barn in a field, but large areas of garden overwhelm my brain. Just like crowds and malls and large urban train stations, gardens in bloom distract and then quickly engulf me. I go into full sensory overload. However, unlike crowds and malls and large urban train stations, gardens don't make me shut down or feel the urge to flee. But I also don't feel the urge to pick up my camera. Where to focus when everything is singing (or screaming) to be photographed?

I AM working on this, but, for now, it's back to my macro lens. And what shows that off better than teensy, tiny flowers that look like points of light or nothing at all in a landscape photo?

For instance, Siberian Miner's Lettuce makes a lovely ground cover for part-shade, 

but you have to get close to really admire the individual flowers.  The common name "Candy Flower" makes more sense now.

Claytonia sibirica

 It's true that plants with distinctive foliage like the Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost' are often grown just for the attractive green and white leaves alone.  And they're pretty cool. . . . I mean, leaves are good. . . . I like leaves. (sound of drumming fingers). . . . . Leaves are important. (more drumming)   However, I don't think I'd have bought the plants (I have several) without those tiny, blue flowers in spring.

Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost'

And then there are the plants that offer little more than a boring clump of leaves that grow in the shade. At least the Brunnera is varigated. Take the bland (really bland) Epimedium. For me, they were just some plants that suffered silently in the shade until part-way into summer, they'd shrivel and die. I'd water the dead leaves. And watch them stay pretty much dead except for one or two that would revive. Exciting stuff. I mean the common names are things like "Bishop's Hat" and "Barren Wort."  What do you expect?   But THIS year was different! Not only are they thriving (yes, they weren't as dead as they looked), but they bloody well flowered!  A little.

Epimedium x rubrum

 Not the prettiest posies in the world, but there they were, waving around under the (boring) leaves, trying to get my attention.  And they did.

 Right now, my absolute favorite is the glasses-not-optional flowers of the 'Purple Fantasy' Fleeceflower:

Yes, the Polygonum microcephalum (Persicaria microcephala synonym) does have cool leaves and a kind of odd-ball shape filled with kinks and unexpected patterns. But the teensy, tiny flowers just blew me away. You REALLY need a macro lens and some cropping to get a close look. But it's worth it.

What are your favorite "insignificant" flowers?

Walking on Water

So I wanted to try for a real blogging schedule. Like maybe every two weeks. Other people do it. It may be too much too often for some of my readers, but I'm curious to see what happens when I don't just write when I feel like it or work on photos when I'm in the mood. 

And, of course, it's winter. A FABULOUS time to do garden photography in the Northwest. Yeah, right. Green and grey and brown. A color palette to swoon over. Don't get me wrong--at least not too wrong--I love the seasons up here. All of them. But it's late(r) January, and I'm pretty much done with winter.  Unfortunately, it's not done with me.  

I'm just looking for a little magic now.  OK?   Leaves draped in diamonds. A hillside swathed in fog that's being slowly diluted with a weak, winter sun.  However I seem to have forgotten how to take photographs.  And not just any type of photograph, but MACRO photographs! Every shot I take comes up soft (blurry), muddy (bleh light), and/or just plain boring.  And getting a sharp photo of ice crystals seems totally beyond my vanishing skill set.  Come on!  Is it really that difficult?  Is the heat of my enthusiasm/frustration melting the ice, thus making sharpness moot (mute?). Have I completely lost my macro-mojo or just misplaced it?   Crap

Then one morning a few days ago, I saw a blue heron standing on the pond. Yes, standing ON the mostly-frozen pond.  At first I thought it would take too much time to change from my macro to my 75-300mm lens and change clothes. But I really wanted, needed to be closer to that heron walking on water. I changed lenses, left the tripod, threw a coat over my nightgown, and raced outside. Then spent a wonderful if very chilly 45 minutes inching my way closer and closer, snapping shots all the way and trying to keep from shaking the camera with my shudders.  At that I was still selective and took about 96 shots. None are "tack sharp" and I don't care. The heron even looked me in the eye (at least it appeared that he/she did from the distance) and didn't leave. Not until I turned back to get my very blue self back indoors. Then it vanished.

The second gift I received (because that lovely bird was a serious gift) came in a wonderful blog entry by nature photographer Rob Sheppard titled "Savoring vs. Harvesting Nature Photography."  He wrote about how photographers can go through periods where filling a memory card and rushing back to the computer for post-processing can become more important than savoring the experience of nature. Slow down and fill yourself with those moments BEFORE taking the picture. 

I began taking pictures because I wanted to be closer to what I was seeing. If I found myself staring at something for longer than a few minutes--a flower, tree bark, light breaking apart on ice--then I knew I needed to photograph it. But when time pressures and technical issues push these moments aside,  the resulting images (as well as my own experiences) suffer. 

So I went back to my ice photos and found a few that looked better to me.  The images are far from ideal, but there were leaves draped in icy diamonds that day.  I just didn't see them until I spent some time with a blue heron taking a stroll across a frozen pond. 

 By the way, if you'd like to take a look at Rob Sheppard's blog, it's Nature and Photography http://www.natureandphotography.com/

Lipstick Latin Pars Duo: What's In a Name?

“Lipstick Latin” appears to be the most viewed post on my blog. So I guess it's time for another dip into taxonomy and botanical Latin.

As explained in that prior entry, my adventures in Latin were based on academic insecurity and intellectual romanticism: I believed that smart, credentialed people knew Latin. Therefore, a light application of Catullus or Livy might make me at least appear fit for Academia.  In addition, since I had rather pronounced stage-fright when it came to speaking a foreign language in a classroom, Classical Latin, not truly “spoken” for about twelve or thirteen hundred years, seemed ideal: reading and translating, not conversing. Neither Caesar nor Ovid required one to say “Where is the bus station?” or “Those yellow shoes are too expensive.” Perfect! However there was one teacher in the Classics Department who insisted that Latin, while linguistically static, was alive in the hills and in her classroom. And one day when our much more traditional professor was off at a conference, she appeared. Poor woman; she greeted us in Latin, and we just sat there. She asked us questions (in Latin) and we just stared at her. She even tried to get us to sing with her (in, God help us, Latin) and we sat, stared, and rolled our eyes. After about 15 minutes of this, she gave up the fight and returned to Caesar's wars.

So, no conversation, no worries about correct pronunciation—no one really knows how it sounded since no one speaks (or sings) it any more. Admittedly, there are some straight-forward rules from Classical Latin, but they are not always followed. So when attempting to speak the scientific names of plants, William T. Stearn, eminent botanist and author of, wait for it, Botanical Latin, maintained that “How they are pronounced really matters little provided they sound pleasant and are understandable by all concerned.” Hi Five, my man!

But why Latin for plants? So-called “Common Names” are easier to remember (and say). And they're so much more colorful.  I mean, who wouldn't rather ask for “Pussytoes” than Antennaria neglecta?

Now I could get all academic on you and be thorough and very, very long. But this is a blog, and I'm not a taxonomist (though I do like the word).

Although common names might seem, well, friendlier, they're not always reliable. For example, if I refer to the lily I'm growing outside my kitchen window, you might get a kind of generalized mental picture, but you are also likely to be wrong. There are over FIFTY genera (plural of “genus”) of plants whose common name contains the word “lily.”

Hellebore (Helleborus spp.)

Then there are rather inexact variations on established common names using the modifier “False” like False Lily-of-the-Valley, False Solomon's Seal, False Spirea, False Hellebore, etc. Sort of like identifying someone as “Not Murray.”

False Hellebore (Veratrum viride)

So ask me again: why Latin for plants? Short answer: one dead (i.e. unchanging) language + one name = we all know which plant we're talking about.

Thanks to Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), scientific plant names are Latin or Latinized and binomial (consisting of two parts). The first part indicates the genus and the second is the specific epithet or species epithet. Together they form the species name. In written form, they are both italicized, but only the genus begins with a capital letter. When using the genus without a species epithet, the genus can be followed with unitalicized sp. or ssp. for single or multiple unnamed species.

The names themselves can be useful, but not consistently.

Some indicate physical characteristics: alba=white, sanguineum=blood-red, hirsuta=hairy, campanula=small bell (referring to the flower shape),  foetida=having a bad smell.  But there are other name-sources. 

Ribes sanguineum

Geographical place-names or habitats:  japonica=from Japan, chinensis=from China, alpina=from the alps, sylvestris=of the woods.

Latinized names of people, real or fictional: Abelia spp. for Dr. Clarke Abel, (1780-1826) British naturalist; Forsythia spp. for William Forsyth, (1737-1804) Scottish horticulturist; Hyacinthus from Greek mythology: the youth loved by Apollo. In one version, the West Wind god, Zephyrus, caused his death out of jealousy, and Apollo created the flower from his spilled blood.

Hypericum Androsaemum 'Albury Purple'

But then there are names like Hypericum which is thought to be derived from the Greek hyper for "above" or "over" and eikon for "image" or "apparition." It may have been used to ward off evil spirits or possibly hung above pictures or religious icons for protection. Though not too helpful in terms of matching Latin name to physical plant, it is interesting from a medicinal point of view. For centuries, Hypericum perforatum (St. John's Wort)   has been used to treat a variety of ills. Currently it is prescribed widely in Europe to treat depression, an evil spirit if there ever was one. 

Learning the scientific names of plants is enormously useful as well as occasionally entertaining.  And it's a whole lot more fun than translating sections of Caesar's Commentaries.  But I admit I still get a kick out of asking for "pussytoes."

 

 

End of Summer Glare

I love it. I love the first touch of fall because it means my summer suffering is almost over.  I know it sounds odd, ungrateful, or just plain stupid coming from someone living under sheets of wet and grey for several months out of the year, but summer gets old fast. Unblinking, it insists we look it squarely in the face and rejoice.  Yeah, well, not what I moved up North for.  I'm grateful on behalf of my tomatoes.  That's about it. Too flat. The light is too flat. Shadows too sharp. Summer presses down on the brain, squishing thought, expelling romance.  A big, dumb grin of peonies and ox-eye daisies. 

Anemone hupehensis 'Prince Henry'

OK, maybe summer isn't THAT bad.   Tactless, promiscuous.  But throws a good party.  And many flowers that are said to bloom in fall, actually begin in late summer. Anemones come for the party in July, but stay late for the long talks in September.  I swear they look different this time of year, more intelligent, less perky.  Even a little pensive.  Bonjour Tristesse?  

I originally planted a Blue Mist (or Blue Beard) shrub for fall flowers.  But when it first bloomed, I kept saying, "That's it?  That's all there is?  Just little patches of blue bumps along a stem?"  But softer light, nerves steeled against the constant blanket of bees, and a macro lens bring out the turquoise anthers waving above those purple petals and the blue-green leaves.  An animated boutonniere. 

Caryopteris x clandonensis 'Dark Knight'

Even the unfortunately named "Leadwort" takes on a bit of glamour in the long, autumn light.  Like the peach-colored light bulbs used at the Moulin Rouge because they improve the look of women's skin (or so I've heard), flowers opening against a background of browns, reds and oranges have a kind of glow.

Ceratostigma plumbaginoides

The beginning of fall brings the last days of Chinese Astilbes.  Thanks to a friend who gave me two or three, I went from having the equivalent of a decorative throw-rug to wall-to-wall carpeting.  But it's now that I appreciate them most, when only a few resist brown for a moment more.  Improbable details of color I couldn't see in the summer glare.

Astilbe chinensis

 But fall hasn't taken taken off her coat just yet.  It's only the dawn of October; the woods still wait.

A Bit of Botany: Stamens & Pistils

As a child, I asked and asked for a microscope.  It's not that I wanted to be a scientist; I just liked seeing things up close. Staring at the way a leaf dried into brown and gold curves could entertain me for a lot longer than the Betsy-Wetsy doll from Aunt Edith.  No, there was nothing wrong with my eyes and not much wrong with my brain; I just found details more compelling than the “big picture,” (and dolls that peed weren't exactly stimulating).  Our eyes sweep by gardens so quickly. Too much is lost, left as a dot of yellow or a smear of purple. How much of a vista can a brain process?  And though I can enjoy that moment of beauty, I'm not fully engaged.  I'd rather sit in the first row and get hit by the sweat from a pirouetting dancer than sit in the last to coolly admire the choreographic designs. I really like intimacy.

Photographic intimacy.  With plants.  Let me say now that I really hate those people portraits where the bigger the person's pores, the more successful the photographer thinks he's been. I just want to wash my face and clean my lens.

But stamens, I really like stamens. I like how they reach out, reach up. Wave around. Attention-seeking. With fairy dust. Yes, I have pollen allergies, but magic is magic and sneezing is simply another way shouting “shazam!”

Too much? OK, I just like how they look. 

Trientalis borealis

 Botany 101 minus 10: stamens of a flower are collectively referred to as the androecium ( meaning: little house of man, or something like that). A stamen has an anther, which waves about, sprinkled with pollen (as Walt Whitman would put it “the father stuff”), held aloft by a filament.

The gynoecium (yes, little house of woman) refers to a collection of one or more carpels or pistils, depending on whom you read. I'm going with “pistil” because its got a kind of Annie Oakley ring to it (though I think she used a rifle.) The pistil is composed of a stigma, which takes in the pollen, a style, the hollow tube the pollen travels down to the ovary which houses the ovule. And I'm assuming you can use your imagination for the rest.  The Starflower above has seven stamens and one pistil at the center.

Using a Macro lens lets you get close enough for what I sometimes refer to as the OB/GYN view of a flower as seen with this Hellebore on the right.   Some might find this shot a bit off-putting, but I LOVE how amazing the flower structures are.  The pistils rise above the swarming stamens like underwater creatures swimming through oceanic vegetation.  And those gold-green tubes all around?  Those are the nectaries, also known as honey leaves.  The insects have to fly into the nectaries to get the nectar, and as they go in and out, pollen adheres to them which then gets transferred to the stigmas.

But, for me, these botanical contemplations breed metaphors rather than taxonomy.  After all, I'm a writer not a scientist.  When I stare at the St. John's Wort below, marvel at the numerous stamens seeming to burst from the base of the pistil, I see a celebration, just-launched fireworks on a grand yet tiny scale.

Hypericum androsaemum “Albury Purple”

 

An Eccentricity of Color: Blue Flowers

When I was a child, Red was synonymous with Flower: hibiscus, bougainvillea, and roses. Maybe there was one pink hibiscus growing somewhere, a shy afterthought in a garden that had never been thought out. And the thoughtless, scarlet Oleanders. The PTA sent us home with cautionary tales of poisonings and urgent requests to uproot the notorious vegetation. That we were harboring a killer in our yard was kind of thrilling to an eight-year-old but horrifying to my parents. So flowers were red and flowers could be dangerous.

But not yellow ones. I try to like yellow flowers. I really do. There's just so many of them. 

And they're so, well, “sunny.”

Years ago, when I was a dancer in a college theater department, we had the “opportunity” to work with a “movement therapist.” Yes, yes, the quotation marks are swarming. How else to indicate to the reader a raised eyebrow, a wrinkled nose, or a brief curl of the lip? Anyway, “a very nice lady” (curl of the stomach) appeared in a tie-dyed leotard and tights (and scarves, there MUST have been scarves). She lowered the lights, gave us some breathing exercises, told us to “feel” ourselves becoming a flower, and then to move around the room expressing said flower. . . . Can I tell you how much I did not want to feel myself to be any flower whatsoever much less MOVE like one? It was the very early 70s and I wore all black and thick black eyeliner. Basically, I was Goth in a psychedelic world.

Anyway, every person in that room began to sway and then to skip and then to twirl, murmuring “I'm a daisy” (I kid you not), “I'm a buttercup,” “I'm a marigold” (his mother must have gardened). Red clearly was too dangerous, too sexy and purple too royal, too bold, because every last one of them chose to be a cheerful smudge of yellow. I wish I could tell you that I became a Scotch Thistle or some sort of fungus. But I was too dark a soul for irony and too shy for outright rebellion. So I left.

Eventually I gardened, growing red, purple, green, white, and, yes, even yellow flowers. But the blue ones are different. An achievement. A gift. A discovery every single time.  I don't know why. It's not like there aren't loads of blue flowers that grow easily. So why do they feel so uncommon?  An eccentric color for a flower.  Skies are blue; water is blue; flowers are red or yellow or some variation.  Blue flowers take some thought.  Unnatural by their very nature.  And just a little bit odd.

Borage.  What a tedious name for an herb.  It sounds like a purgative or good-for-you-but-nasty fiber.  But who cares what it's for or what it's called when the flower glows from either side. 

Borago officinalis

 A neighbor tried to give me a weedy-looking plant he swore was chicory.  I didn't need any more invasives and it was ugly anyway.  I stuck the pot in a corner and ignored it.  I didn't water it, didn't feed it, didn't remove the (other) weeds growing over, around and in the same pot with it.  Until this happened:
A celebration of a flower.  A chorus of anthers.

Cichorium intybus

 Love-in-a-Mist, an annual that reseeds with a promiscuous abandon is found in any collection of flower photographs.

Nigella damascena

But after taking more and more time with it, shooting more slowly, and then processing more deliberately, it began to take on the density of an oil painting.

 

 Last is a flower I've not yet grown.  I have the seeds, and gardeners far more knowledgeable than I have given me detailed instructions but also have cautioned me to lower my expectations.  Blue Poppies.  They are tricky to grow, but might be bliss to dance.

Meconopsis

The Vacation Garden: some of us are looking at the Astrantia

Imagine my horror when I returned from a two-week vacation to find that my garden had continued to grow—wildly grow—without me. How dare I leave town in spring (or summer or fall)?  Apparently the rain had come down and the sun had shone and the temperature had remained moderate to warm. So the garden had done what gardens do in such conditions: it sprouted, grew, and died all at the same time. And it did it all without me. It's like coming home to accusing stares from children whose birthdays you missed or the wreckage from teenagers who partied in your absence. And let's not even look for a metaphor for the weeds that multiplied in unthinkable numbers.

And where do I start? The Lupines have more stalks gone to seed than flowering ones, and powdery mildew blankets almost every stem that doesn't have an occupying slug. The Rhodies, blooming when I left, are studded with spent flowers. Branches of brown petals mark the locations of the Azaleas. And the gravel path through the beds is now a bed for errant grasses, multiple varieties of Willowherb, and dandelions.  The Creeping Yellow Buttercup (the invasive Ranunculus repens) has crept into everything from the Japanese Bloodgrass to the Chinese Astilbes. 

The vegetable garden is a mess: all the Arugula and most of the lettuces bolted; winds and rains knocked the sugar-snap peas off the teepee trellis, bending the major stems thus killing off the leaves and peas above the break; and the peppers have simply vanished--the work of rabbits I imagine (hmmm . . . or rabbits I can't imagine). Only the garlic and tomato plants seem immune to my absence.

Then there is the massive tangle that is the blooming, fruiting garden, surprised just in-between: the Nigella flowers pushing up through branches of fruiting Red-flowering currants; Oregano barely avoiding the the sharp spines of the Rose Glow Japanese Barberry; and the Catmint splayed in the walkway, heavy with blooms and bees.

And though I did photograph all of this--truly I did--I post none. As mentioned (time and time again), I still struggle with taking garden shots that include more than a plant or two. Well, I can take the shot, but the final image is just too boring.  After a week in Newfoundland, I find that I can take landscapes, but still no medium-angle garden shots.

So here's a single rain-beaten Geum coccineum 'Borisii' compared to one that escaped the deluge:  

Astrantia major

But then there are the Great Masterworts--fabulous name--towering above the carnage of rain, wind, slugs and weeds.  And I feel hopeful again, and, for me, it is once again spring.

Astrantia major 'Abbey Road'

Astrantia major 'Abbey Road'

(with apologies to Oscar Wilde):  We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the Astrantia.