Canterbury Bells

Rose Canterbury Bells

Just remember in the winter

Far beneath the bitter snow

Lies the seed

That with the sun’s love, in the spring

Becomes the rose.

Lyrics and Song Music by Amanda McBroom, Made popular by Bette Midler~

I’m going to use this photo challenge as an opportunity to feature a few more of the rose photos I took this past weekend at the rose garden in San Diego’s Balboa Park. You can see the other rose photos here and here.

Here’s another multicolored rose that featured a pleasant rose fragrance. It helps that it’s also very pretty to look at.

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Scent of a multicolored rose

I loved the fragrance of the next rose. It had a very delicate and pure scent. Mmmmmm…

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Scent of a fragrant rose

Other flowers can smell very look, including lavender, which comes in many varieties and sizes.

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Scent of lavender

One scent I really enjoy is the one of wet dirt and grass after the rain. This after the rain scent is not too common in San Diego so I love it when it happens.

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Scent of wet dirt after the rain

My favorite flower fragrance is lilac blossoms. Unfortunately common lilacs don’t like the San Diego hot and dry weather too much, so we find a different type here in nature called the Ramona lilac. Its scent is very, very light but it still looks pretty.

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Scent of Ramona lilac blossoms

For my last photo, I’ll share one of my favorite scents: the smell of the ocean, here at Coronado Beach. I love the mix of iodine, salt and seaweed. Can you smell it?

Update: I won an honorable mention for this photo in the weekly contest.

Let’s Be Wild Weekly Photo Challenge – Scent – ocean smell

Primula ‘veris shades’

blooming now in the shade garden, the beautiful red, orange and yellow primroses, Primula ‘veris shades’

The course ran from 10am until 4pm and cost £52 for RHS members, slightly more for non-members and that included lunch, it was great value in my opinion.
If you fancy taking this course yourself, there are a couple more dates this summer, for more details take a look at Sue’s website http://www.bluebellcottage.co.uk/events.

This floral inspiration post has a monochrome theme. Monochrome is currently this season’s style when it comes to fashion, so it seems only fitting to to create a post based around white, grey & black. Especially as these are my personal favourite shades. White is so simple and elegant , especially when it comes to flowers and petals.

For more lovely inspiring images go to our pintrest pages. All images on this post are collected from pintrest.

Orange is far from being my favorite color but I love how nature displays it boldly. My favorite display has to be this orange dragonfly I captured a few weeks ago. It was a lucky shot for sure. You can see my photo of a blue dragonfly here.

A Word A Week Challenge – Orange dragonfly

While I visited San Diego’s Balboa Park on Sunday, I stopped by the rose garden and took several photos of the many colorful roses. You can view these beautiful (and not orange) roses in yesterday’s post. Here are a few orange roses I saw while there:

A Word A Week Challenge – Orange rose at Balboa Park

I tried to use the very cloudy sky as a background for the next photo. I kind of like the effect, although I bet this rose would be absolutely beautiful on a blue background since the two colors are opposite on the color wheel.

A Word A Week Challenge – Orange rose at Balboa Park in San Diego

And here’s a last large burst of orange roses for you!

A Word A Week Challenge – Orange rose in San Diego’s rose garden

This next rose is more subtle and displays a mix of orange, yellow and light pink. I love this type of tea roses and they usually smell very good.

A Word A Week Challenge – Orange tea rose in Balboa Park rose garden

Of course, roses are not the only flowers that are orange. Here are a few more orange flowers I’ve photographed in the past, like this beautiful orange protea pincushion.

A Word A Week Challenge – Orange protea pincushion protea flower

I’m not sure what the next flower is called but I love its big fuzzy petals.

A Word A Week Challenge – Orange flower with fuzzy petals

I like the orange leaves of fall foliage. We don’t get a lot of that in San Diego, so it’s nice to spot it here and there.

A Word A Week Challenge – Orange leaves of a sumac tree in the fall

Of course, I can’t participate in an orange theme without displaying an orange, can I? Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

A Word A Week Challenge – Orange on the orange tree

My Purple Dream

Yes, I like purple!

I spent yesterday morning at San Diego’s Balboa Park with my kids and one of our stops was the rose garden. I actually went there to take photos for another photo challenge (coming up tomorrow) but I ended taking a lot more photos when I saw the beautiful roses in bloom. So many sizes, colors and fragrances, a delight to walk through such garden, even with a slight rain!

Here are a few of my picks. I hope you enjoy this burst of color!

I love this first rose as it displays so many different colors on its petals. When you look at the various roses on the same rose tree, they all have different colors, which makes me think there was some cross-pollination to explain the yellow tint. Multi-color roses are quite something.

Macro Monday: roses at San Diego Balboa Park

I love this purple rose and had to snap a photo of it!  If you click on it to view the larger image, you can see some tiny rain droplets on the petals.

Macro Monday: Close-up of a purple rose

I’m very happy with the composition of this next shot. I took several photos of this yellow rose but when I opened this image, I knew it was it. No cropping or editing necessary. I love these lucky shots!

Macro Monday: Close-up of a yellow rose at Balboa Park

It’s worth clicking on this last photo to see the details of the rose pistils. I got a couple of photos of this rose with a bee inside and I’m saving them for another post.

Macro Monday: Rose pistils at the Balboa Park rose garden

“My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant’s point of view.” – H. Fred Dale

For more unique Flora themed images from others and Culti-vate head to our pintrest page.

Angelica is by far one of my favourite plants. It’s towering height, broad deep green leaves, elegant stems & the delightful scent of gin and tonic that is given out when you snap off one of the sturdy hollow stems, makes me feel very summery, reminds me of warm days and luscious borders.

Angelica is a biennial, it only grows bushy large leaves in the first year, then dies down fully in winter. In its second year Angelica flowers can grow up to two meters in height becoming more majestic and elegant as it grows. It also spreads and bushes out more to create great clumps. With its large spread & height Angelica makes a wonderful plant for the back of you border. Angelica’s flowers grow to large globular umbels, yellowish white in colour and look wonderful in a floral arrangement, either fresh or when they have gone to seed. The seed heads can create a dramatic silhouette when dried and arranged.

All of the Angelica is edible, the roots in the first year, leaves in the second and the seeds when mature. It is often used in confectionary and baking, and is also used in flavouring drinks. Angelica is also fully hardy so there is no need to worry about it out in your garden.

Angelicas grow best in moist woodland areas, but as you can see these seem to be very at home amid the terratex. They have been growing here for years, and each year more seem to pop up! Self seeding themselves, so they must be happy!

Here are a few samples of photos taken from above. Remember you can click on each photo to view it in a larger format. And if you like what you see, I invite you to subscribe to this blog so you can get new updates as they come. I publish new photo posts 3 to 5 times a week. Enjoy!

I love photographing raindrops, especially as they linger after the rain has gone. If the sun shines a bit, it can makes for a really nice picture.

WordPress weekly photo challenge: From above – Raindrops on the leaves of a rose tree

I don’t like spiders but I like how raindrops sit on a spider web. Here’s an example of a spider web right above smooth river rocks with raindrops on top of it. I have more examples of this type of raindrops here and here, but this photo is a few weeks old.

WordPress weekly photo challenge: From above – Raindrops on a spider web

I usually don’t photograph flowers from right above but these flowers below seemed like the perfect exception. Look how the center of the flower seems almost white as the petals go from yellow to red. Only a shot from above can amplify this pattern.

WordPress weekly photo challenge: From above – bright yellow red flowers

Of course I can’t talk about flowers without talking about bees. I like photographing them from above to show their beautiful wings. On this photo I shared a couple of weeks ago, I noticed something quite special. Take a close look at the bags of nectar the bee is gathering on its back legs. What an efficient way to gather a lot of nectar!

WordPress weekly photo challenge: From above – Bee carries bags of nectar on legs

Finally you also can’t talk about flowers without mentioning butterflies. When they stay put and leave their wings wide open, you have the opportunity to photograph beautiful colors from above.

Here’s a beautiful orange julia butterfly (Dryas iulia).

WordPress weekly photo challenge: From above – Orange julia butterfly (Dryas iulia)

And here’s a postman butterfly (Heliconius Melpomene).

WordPress weekly photo challenge: From above – Postman butterfly (Heliconius Melpomene)

We had a beautiful sunny day for daffodil gathering and made great use of my lovely handmade gathering basket too. After searching for extra branches and twigs I set about creating some lovely arrangements so my mum could enjoy her beautiful daffs.

Spending an afternoon enjoying arranging these delightful daffs I felt like spring really had sprung!

It’s common practice around here to graft a branch from one tree to another to create bi-colored flowering trees. It’s common, and yet I’m always intrigued when I see one.

Lavender Fields Forever

Purple Lavender

Lavender Flowers

Got caught on this one!

Didn’t get caught on this one

These are for you, my bloggy friends! Picked from my own little flowerbed. But pretend like you didn’t see me ~

mukdenia karasuba

mukdenia karasuba

Red White Flowers

Today I’m taking part in Macro Monday at Lisa’s Chaos. Remember you can click on each image to see it in a larger format.

I recently discovered a violet honey-myrtle tree in bloom at the San Diego Botanic Garden. Very pretty flowers, but I wonder why they’re labeled violet when they’re clearly more pink than anything.

Macro Monday: the blooms of the violet honey-myrtle tree

No matter the color of its blooms, bees seemed very interested in this tree. Here’s one I captured hard at work.

Macro Monday: bee on a violet honey-myrtle bloom

Happy macro Monday!