New Years in the Gardens

I love this picture. The trees look so ghostly.

I spent New Years Day in my favorite place: Rutgers Gardens. I was surprised at the amount of snow left over from last week’s blizzard despite the warm temperatures we have experienced since then.

The snow has been melting in interesting shapes.

Evidence of the high winds was scattered all over the floor of Helyar Woods.

Photo of the Day

I love the colors in this shot.

You can see more photos of my New Years Walk in the Gardens on Flickr.

Cabin Fever

The unseasonably warm weather is causing intense cabin fever. I can’t stand being cooped up in the house. I must be outside. It’s too early to do any gardening so I took my camera on a walk around Rutgers Gardens. It was a great day for photography. I came away with a record three Photos of the Day.

All of the ponds were still covered with ice. This, the largest, had a few areas of open water.

I didn’t realize that bamboo is evergreen. I love the contrast of the browns and grays with the green of the bamboo. It gives the appearance of a hidden garden.

The pond in the display gardens was full of acorn-like nuts, leaves and if you look carefully, you can see fish just below the ice.

The drabness of the winter landscape made details that I might ordinarily overlook really stand out. Like this bright orange fungus.

I’ve photographed this tree many, many times in the spring, summer and fall but it wasn’t until it was stripped bare that I saw how intertwined the branches were.

I ended my walk at what has become my favorite place in the gardens, the old greenhouse.

It’s boarded up now and the broken panes of glass have been removed but it still draws me back every time that I visit.

Super Bowl Sunday Stroll

I took advantage of the warm weather and the fact that everyone would be inside watching the Super Bowl to visit the Van Wickle House, a Dutch farmhouse built in 1722. I’ve visited the house several times but each time it has been either too dark or too cold to photograph the formal garden attached to it. Today I was hoping to get some interesting contrasts between the disarray of a garden in winter with the structured formality of the brick walkway and picket fence. Alas, the recent storms left too much snow on the ground. I was unable to capture the textures that I was seeking.

The Photo of the Day will give you an idea of how much snow was on the ground:

As much as I like the colors in this picture, I think that it would work better in black and white.

Frustrated in my attempt at capturing a certain mood, I headed out on the wetland boardwalk to the Delaware & Raritan Canal that runs in front of the house. The end of the boardwalk was partially blocked by a tree that I initially thought had blown down during a storm. A closer examination of the base revealed the handiwork of beavers.

Beavers! In overbuilt central New Jersey. I would never have guessed they lived here.

The D&R Canal was dug, mainly by hand, between 1830 and 1834. By the Van Wickle House, it runs along side the Raritan River. Today the canal was covered by ice.

While just a few feet away, the river was ice-free, providing recreation to a flock of Canadian Geese.

If they aren’t the State Bird, they should be. They are everywhere.

You can see all of my pictures of the Van Wickle House and D&R Canal on Flickr.

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.

Autumn Glory

This is what I see when I step out my door.



I’ve been allowing a tiny Japanese maple volunteer to grow at the end of my driveway. All through the spring and summer, it looks messy and weedy. Then, in the fall, the reason that I tolerate it becomes apparent.


I’ve been taking lots of pictures of the fall color in my neighborhood. Soon the cold winds and rains of November will arrive sweeping all of the leaves away. The glory that is autumn will be replaced by the dull earth tones of winter.

What Is She Doing Now???

To get that last photo of the zinnia from the bottom, I had to literally lay on my back and shoot upwards. While in that position, I noticed that it gave me great views of my neighbors’ trees.


This is the reason why there is so much shade in my yard. Those three trees are growing in other people’s yards and are so large that they overhang my yard. The only time that I get full sun is when the sun is in that small open space of sky.

My neighbors have seen me do a lot of strange things. I’ve dragged furniture out of the house to stand on and reach the tops of tall plants. I’ve walked in garden beds to press seed into the soil (actually recommended on the seed packet). I’ve gotten on my knees and hung my head upside down to take photos. So, as I lay on my back in the grass today with my camera pointing towards the sky, I imagined my neighbors looking out their windows, shaking their heads and saying, “What is she doing now???”

The Last Gasp

One of the advantages of the long growing season in NJ (zone 6), now prolonged thanks to Global Warming, are the number of plants still in bloom in October. Not shocking, I know, to those of you in warmer climes but still a wonder to those of us who were raised in much colder areas of the country. I brought my camera with me today so that I could capture the beauty of the Display Gardens at Rutgers Gardens before the plants are removed and the beds raked next weekend in preparation for winter.

Photo of the Day

I love that the seedheads are all leaning to the side contrasting with the rigidly upright stems. The ornamental grasses in the perennial borders captivated me. I have a love/hate relationship with ornamental grasses. In the spring and summer, they repulse me. I wonder how anyone could possibly plant such ragged, weedy plants in their flowerbeds. But in the fall and especially the winter, when they come into their own, I am bowled over by their beauty. I am determined to add them to my landscape. I carefully choose spots where they will look best in my yard. And then, in the spring, the cycle repeats itself. I find myself at the nursery, staring at ragged, weedy plants in pots wondering how anyone could possibly plant such ugly things in their flowerbeds.

Look at the color! The patterns! Who could resist this?

Personally, I like this photo more. It looks like a child scribbled on it.

I’m still struggling with light. Since I was photographing in strong afternoon sunlight which I dislike, I tried getting around it by shooting shaded subjects like this:

That same harsh light, though, produces magical photos like this:

The Yellow Garden Cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus) in my plot is finally blooming and yellow:

The earliest flowers were white, but like the Seashells Cosmos which curled as the season grew later, these cosmos have become yellow at the end of the season. I like them so much that I think I will grow them at home next year.

Another flower that I would like to grow at home is lantana.

I haven’t figured out how to use it, but after seeing these berries and falling in love, I’m going to try harder to find a way to include it next year.

Just like in my own yard, insects were everywhere.

The sky was an incredible blue today, as you can see from the first photo in this post. While I was photographing the bee, I looked up and saw this:

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.

Hageman Farm

I was invited to participate in an apple pie contest today (more on that in my next post) at the Hageman Farm, a nineteenth century farmhouse preserved by The Meadows Foundation as part of their first annual Fall Festival. While waiting for the judging to begin, I wandered around the site taking photographs.

I could go on and on about the wonderful restoration work that has been done on the farmhouse and is going on in the cow barn, but instead I found myself drawn towards the structures and parts of structures that hadn’t been restored. The hand-hewn beams, stone foundations, old tools and ironwork called out to me as if begging to tell their stories of the people who had built this place and used these buildings and tools.

Those stories weren’t all recorded well today. I am still struggling with my new camera. Each shoot shows more of what it can do and what I need to learn to get more out of it. One story did come out well resulting in the Photo of the Day:

Here are a few more of my favorite shots from today.

This shot would have been in the running for Photo of the Day if it had been straight. At first I was disappointed by the intrusion of the tree branches but after further consideration decided that they added rather than detracted from the picture. I love the geometric patterns and the wonderful blue of the sky. It is a blue that you only see in the autumn.

I’m going to have to start carrying around a cheat sheet of settings for various lighting situations. I know that there is a way to have photographed this with more light in the room and the ugly scenery in the window blurred. I’ve lightened this up a little in Photoshop. It was a gorgeous setting.

Fellow Straw-hatter, “A”, pointed out this grasshopper to me. Too bad that the flower he was resting on wasn’t more attractive. The zinnias in the borders along the walk were incredible. I hope that the caretaker of the property will tell me what mix he uses.

You can see all of my photos of Hageman Farm on Flickr.