Tall Aster

This is one of the few flower photos I have posted in this blog that wasn’t taken with the 60mm Nikkor-Micro lens. I used an old film camera lens that I had for my N50. It is a 28-200 Sigma lens that is okay but I don’t think that I will ever buy another lens that covers such a broad spectrum again. I want fast lenses! Although I did use the Sigma a lot in Florida I have found working with a prime lens (fixed focal length, no zoom) has helped with composition and cropping. The macro function only works at 200mm and it is a little weird to be so far away from the subject compared to the 60mm.

This was a tall Aster, which for me is a stalwart of the late summer and fall garden. There are many types to choose from. I generally use the smaller growing ones now and pinch them several times during the season. I also try and give them a spray or two with fungicide during the growing season.

On Thursday all I did was gardening. It was so wonderful. Sure I had to stop a couple of times to direct the other people but for the most part I just was gardening. I really tried to forget everything else and concentrate on the bed I was working on. It is a large bed with Bearded Iris, Alliums, Daffodils and a lot of Lychnis coronaria. I am proud of my little stand of Lychnis; there are several hundred plants as I have been spreading the seed for a couple of years now. They are mostly the white flowered version but I couple of the magenta flowered ones pop up for time to time. I actually transplanted a few as the seed had spilled onto a narrow walk and would have to be removed anyway. I will be interested to see if they live. Anyway the bed I was working on was covered in Wild Aster which is okay when it flowers but seems to grow a little too well if you what I mean. So I ended up ripping a lot of it out. I didn’t get nearly all of it but hopefully enough to give the other species a little bit of breathing room. The day of gardening was tiring but so rewarding at the same time. I forget that sometimes when I am doing the paperwork, making calls, designing and all the other stuff you have to do to make a small business run.