Fragrant Water lily (Nymphaea odorata)

Fragrant Water lily
Nymphaea odorata
(NIM-fee-uh) (oh-dor-AY-tuh)
Nymphaeaceae

I went out yesterday determined to take a landscape shot. I had passed this pond on the way to the nursery on Friday and when I went to get my Green Sheen Pachysandra on Saturday I decided to try and take a few snapshots of the water lilies. There must have been 100’s of thousands of them. Of course I went at midday so the sun was hard to manage but I brought my tripod and tried anyway. That what trying to be an artist is all about to me. Continually getting out of my comfort zone (macros) and trying to do something new. I did okay, I thought, on my landscape type of pictures on Long Island but want to keep trying to get better at it.




The water lilies were beautiful and the pond was a buzz with all types of life. After parking and scurrying down the bank I ran into a deer. I was maybe 8 feet from her. I am not sure who was more startled. I didn’t have time to raise my camera before she went crashing through the brush and was gone. These water lilies are considered invasive and they had completely taken over this pond. They are also fragrant but since the edge of the pond was so soft I couldn’t really get close enough to smell them. The macro was taken by hanging my camera out over the muck with the tripod and using the timer. I was glad my camera didn’t fall off the tripod.

I’ll post this one since I read that it is National Pollinator Week over at Alameda Garden.



I have a Bumble Bee nest near my front door and have been torn about what to do about it. Since they don’t seem aggressive and it is ‘their’ week I’ll leave it alone.



Ruth left a comment here about the hardiness zones here and I wanted to post this link for her.
Plant Hardiness Zone Map of the British Isles

It shows a map of Great Britain with the USDA Zones superimposed over it. Ruth it looks like you can grow anything I post (I am in USDA Zone 6) and a whole lot more. Actually it showed me how temperate the UK actually is. English gardeners also don’t have to deal with the problems of the higher USDA Zones that the Americans do; namely the blazing sun of the American south and west. Now when I lived in England I noticed that I would see plants in gardens that were rated (hardiness wise) above most of the other plants around it. So I have concluded (and I maybe wrong) that microclimate gardening is also possibility in the UK. A warm brick wall with southern exposure is going to boost the Zones up by one or two. I want to thank my friend Walnut at the
Gardener’s Corner Bulletin Board for the excellent reference map.