The Seeds of Summer

I am being buried in seed catalogs. I love it. Last year, I dabbled in the Dried Flower Bed at Rutgers Gardens. It was assigned to me at the last minute, so I had to settle for planting leftovers from the greenhouse. Needless to say, it was not a success. This year, I will be able to grow flowers ahead of time in the greenhouse specifically for the Dried Flower Bed. I’ve found a lot of interesting flowers but need to narrow down my list. It’s a small bed. There’s just not enough room for everything that I want to grow.

The bed is surrounded on two sides by a fence. I plan on growing small decorative gourds on the fence. Yes, I know that they aren’t flowers but neither are the decorative grasses that are already in the bed. I’m such a rebel!

Being a long time volunteer (6 years!) has its privileges. I’ve decided to branch out and try growing veggies. There is a waiting list for veggie beds, but the Volunteer Coordinator allowed me to jump to the head of the list and grab a bed that was being relinquished by another gardener. I will be growing stuff that I cook with such as parsley, carrots, onions, garlic and herbs. I have to have a few flowers so I will be growing edible flowers such as nasturtiums, marigolds and calendulas.

I think I will declare this the Year of the Zinnia. I saw lots of interesting varieties of zinnias in the catalogs that would be perfect for my gardens at home.

This is my favorite time of year when I can dream about my gardens. In my dreams, they always look lovely and never have weeds.

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.

Holly

Rutgers Gardens has a large holly collection.

I’ve driven by it many times, but never taken the time to photograph it. The hollies with yellow berries intrigue me.

As you can see, the light was terrible this afternoon. Harsh, washing out all of the colors. I had terrible trouble with shadows.

So no Photo of the Day. I took a few nice ones, but nothing that really stood out.

I thought this was kind of fun:

You can see all of my photos from today on Flickr.

Swarthmore Arboretum

After our tour of Chanticleer, we took advantage of the picnic area to have lunch. Then it was off to Swarthmore Arboretum. The arboretum is located on the campus which has many beautiful buildings.

There are hidden gardens.

And inviting places to sit.

My favorite place?

The rose garden, of course!


Or maybe it’s the shady amphitheatre.

 
I wonder . . .
 

 
…is this real or a clever garden ornament?
 
We were exhausted after walking all day.
 

 
We wondered if this kitty was willing to share his bench.
 

And that’s the end of my tail tale.

You can see all of my photos of Swarthmore arboretum on Flickr.

Chanticleer Revisited

After being wowed by Chanticleer last fall, I leapt at the chance to visit again, this time at the end of June. It was even more beautiful at that time of year.

The trip produced two Photos of the Day:

I liked them both so much that I printed them and hung them on my wall.

Visiting gardens is a great way to get ideas for my own gardens.

I would never have thought of planting red poppies in a largely pink and purple bed, would you?

I always think of cutting gardens as utilitarian,

but if designed right, they can be beautiful.

 

Even a veggie garden can be an attractive place to sit.

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

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.

Frelinguysen Arboretum

Visiting gardens and arboretums with non-gardeners can be trying so I jumped at the chance to re-visit Frelinghuysen Arboretum today, this time with volunteers from Rutgers Gardens.
First, I give you the Photo of the Day:

As usual, this was one of those “oh, that’s nice, let me get a quick shot of it”. At the time, I was concentrating on finding an artsy way to photograph the architectural details of the accompanying house. Which did not come out as well. When will I ever learn?

There is a rose garden at Frelinghuysen, but my favorite garden is the veggie garden.

I don’t even grow veggies, but if I did, I would want to do it in a garden just like this.

About a decade ago, someone had the bright idea to use the runoff from the parking lot to create a “marsh/meadow garden”.

Today we would call it a “rain garden”. No matter what you call it, it’s still beautiful.

You can see more photos of my visit to Frelinghuysen Arboretum on Flickr.

First Outing

My trusty old digital camera died last May after years of giving me great photos despite the abuse it suffered from me. Of course it chose to do this a week before I was due to visit the New Jersey Botanical Gardens for the first time. I had always planned on replacing it with a digital SLR, but really hadn’t looked into them. In one week’s time, I managed to research brands, features and prices and purchased a Nikon D40.

And then it poured rain. With my old camera, this wouldn’t have been a problem. A little rain had never hurt it (although I’m sure it would have disagreed) and since it was a simple point & shoot, I could operate it with one hand while holding an umbrella. Not so my fancy new SLR. It requires at least two hands and dislikes moisture, heat, cold and dirt. What a prima donna!

The new camera had to wait until June before going on its first outing to NYBG. I put it through its paces. There were a lot of hits and misses, but by the end of the day, I had gotten the hang of this fancy digital SLR stuff.

This was one of those trips that yielded more than one Photo of Day. The first one was taken in the garden at Holly House before we even left.

Acanthus mollisBear's Britches

This is a new flower to me. I want it for my shade garden at home.

The second one isn’t even of the gardens.

Old Mill

This is an amazing shot. I took it out of the window of a tram that was stopped so that passengers could embark and disembark. Somehow I managed to keep the camera still despite the rocking of the tram as people got on and off while keeping all of them out of the photo. I did manage to get a little of the railing of bridge that we were stopped on, but that can be cropped out.

I had fun a lot fun that day. I took some “arty” shots like this:

I have no clue what flower that is, but it looks really cool.

I got some neat close-ups:

And I enjoyed using the lens to bring things closer like this duck:

Here’s another flower that is new to me:

Rudbeckia maximaGiant Coneflower

Walls and fences drew my attention that day. Here are two of my favorite shots:

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

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.