Oh no, not again!

New Jersey seems to be blessed with weekly snowfalls. First there was the Christmas Blizzard, then a couple more inches last week. It was so little that I didn’t bother shoveling it. Last night we were graced with another foot of snow. Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. There was only 6” to 8” in my yard, although some areas did get up to a foot.

Most people were probably glad that the storm happened over night. They were able to get home from work before it started and when they got up this morning, the plows had cleared the snow away.

It was another story for those of us who work non-traditional hours. There was already 4” on the ground when I left at midnight. After cleaning snow off of my car, I crawled home at 25 mph over snow covered roads in the darkness. The concept of “lanes” no longer existed. Traffic lights became the enemy. Red lights had to be carefully timed so that I could either roll to a stop or glide slowly through them praying that the drivers coming the other way would allow me time to clear the intersection. Even green lights were a problem. Once I was stopped, starting up again was a problem as my tires fought for traction in the snow.

My normal 20 minute commute turned into a 45 minute white knuckled odyssey as I negotiated inclines and curves in a vehicle over which I had little control. Even my driveway has a slight incline so rather than being relieved at arriving home, I was unsure if my car would make it up the driveway.

Today I made the happy discovery that it is a lot easier to shovel snow when I have had more than a couple of hours of sleep and there is less than a foot of powder rather than the 2’ to 3’ of snow that I had to deal with two weeks ago. I was all shoveled out in less than 30 minutes.

Which made the birds happy. They were fed early today. I always spread seed on the snow for ground feeders like the mourning doves and juncos.

Willowwood Arboretum

I love revisiting gardens. There is always something more to see. This is especially true when visiting the same gardens during different seasons. I had an opportunity last April to go to Willowood Arboretum, which I had first visited a few years ago during the month of September.

First, the Photo of the Day. There were two of them this time.

Look! It’s not centered. I’m making progress on that front.

I love this photo because it is up to the viewer to decide what is the subject. Is the picture about the flowers? Is it about the gate? Is it about the ivy-covered stones?

Visiting Willowwood during the month of April when the gardens were just starting to come alive, gave me a chance to examine the bones of the garden as well as the functional and decorative objects in the landscape.

I don’t recall seeing this water pump last time probably because it was overwhelmed by the shrub and other plants and flowers that captured my attention instead. The sunny daffodils made this little vignette really stand out.

This house grabbed my camera and wouldn’t let go.

I don’t recall this feature from my last visit. It looks like a perfect spot for containers. And check out the great stonework.

Also a contender for the Photo of the Day.

When I looked at the photos I took on my first trip to Willowwood, with the exception of the gate, there is not a single picture of any of these things. I didn’t “see” them through the mature vegetation and colorful flowers.

You can see all of the photos of my trip to Willowwood on Flickr.

Signs of Life

If you look closely, you can see that the gardens are beginning to stir.

Lilac

Bronze Fennel

Cyclamen

Chrysanthemum

Columbine

My Garden in Winter

The frigid weather ended with a light snowfall. I hurried outside to take some pictures knowing that snow does not last long in New Jersey. All of what you are about to see was gone before the sun went down.

The sun became the Photo of the Day:


The sky was much brighter than it appears here but I like the gray moodiness of this shot.

I started out with the obligatory photos of snow-capped echinacea.





This is what drew me out of the house initially.


These hydrangeas are right outside my bedroom window.


This leaf was in the running for Photo of the Day. I find it strangely attractive.

Very soon, I moved on to foliage. Common Sage, my favorite of the foliage photos:


I love the colors in this shot:


Moody lavender to go with the moody sun:


Can you guess what this is?


Click here to see what it looked like in June.

This post was inspired by the Green Thumb Sunday Day post at A Journey of Grace & Whimsy. Thanks, Brenda!

Plants For Shade

Hush! Don’t tell my boss, but while I spent six nights at work with no lights and no heat, I kept myself awake by writing about plants that grow in the shade. I published the results on Hub Pages.

Mid-November Blooms

Despite the cooler night time temperatures, a few flowers are still adorning my garden.


The pink, blue and lavender blossoms on my Nikko Blue hydrangeas have turned a uniform rosy pink.


That same pink fades to a dull red.


The dull red fades to a sea green.


And finally, the green dries to a dull brown. I leave the dried flowerheads on all winter. They are more attractive than bare branches.

Hydrangeas

I love my Nikko Blue hydrangeas. When the flowers mature, they are a brilliant sky blue. I love that they do equally well on the shady side of my house as they do on the sunny side.

Half a dozen years ago the sewer line broke and a trench was dug from the foundation to the curb. When the trench was backfilled, the soil in that area was a different pH, resulting in gorgeous pink blooms.

This year, there was a third color. Lavender.

The question is, was the lavender the result of pink mingling with blue or blue blending with pink?

Chanticleer

I have a new favorite garden. Chanticleer. Not sure what to expect from a “pleasure garden”, it was love at first sight. The gardens were enchanting despite the gray skies and intermittent downpours. If the gardens are this lovely this late in the season, then I can’t wait to see them in the spring and summer.

Photo of the Day
Dahlia in the Cutting Garden

I’m slowly being won over to dahlias. For many years, I’ve resisted them because of the work involved digging them up each fall and replanting them in the spring. The more I see of them on blogs and in person, the more tempted I am to try them.

I just loved this little spring house, photographing it from every conceivable angle and distance. It’s what I’ve been trying to do for years with the ugly shed in my backyard. The advantage here is full sun. My yard has mainly shade.

There were so many gorgeous trees.

Two views of the same garden.

You can see all of my photos of Chanticleer on Flickr.

September in The Gardens

Look up the word blowzy in the dictionary and you’ll find a picture of the Display Gardens at Rutgers Gardens in September. Still colorful, the formerly neat beds overflow onto the lawn. Once straight stalks are now bent under the weight of a summer’s worth of flowers. There is color everywhere. It’s as if the entire garden is desperately trying to hold off the inexorable march of the season towards the killing frosts of fall.

I brought my camera with me today to try and capture the glory of the gardens in September. After I had done some much needed work on my plot, of course. The cleome, now gone to seed, was removed and the cosmos, calendula and marigolds deadheaded to prolong their flowering for as long as possible. Then it was off to enjoy and record the late season beauty.

First, I give you the Photo of the Day:

Lion's Tail

I love the strong verticals set off by the horizontal leaves. The flowers haven’t opened yet so their vivid orange is just a splash of color amongst the bright green of the foliage.

Backgrounds are a big problem for me at home where my yard is enclosed by an ugly chainlink fence. Because my property is so small, it’s virtually impossible to take photos without the fence making an unwelcome appearance in the rear. When I am shooting in a garden other than my own, I have a bad habit of overlooking the background when concentrating on a particular plant. Today, I made a point of experimenting with various backgrounds.

Not bad, but the background is too busy. Let’s try another angle.

Nope, that looks lopsided. Too busy on one side.

Okay, that’s better although I’ve lost the emphasis on the grass. I do like that background.

Another assignment that I gave myself was to avoid photos like this:

I caught that one in time to be able to take another one without the offending branch:

I missed this one:

But caught this one:

Last week, I checked out a wonderful book on digital photography from my local library, The Betterphoto Guide to Digital Photography. I’ll do a full review of it when my own copy arrives from Amazon.com. While I’m waiting for it, I tried some of the techniques I read about.

Turn around. The author recommends when shooting, turning around to see what’s behind you. In this case, I always shoot this arbor looking in towards the Log Cabin. Today, I tried shooting it looking out from the Log Cabin.

My first photos included the branch as a framing device, another recommendation. I wasn’t happy with the result, so I moved forward to eliminate the branch.

My subsequent photos used the path to draw the viewer into the scene as suggested in the chapters on composition.

On my way in to The Gardens, I saw stands of golden rod along the entry road. On my way out, I spent some time photographing them using different apertures, focal lengths and shutter speeds.

You can see all of the pictures I took today on Flickr.