Mr. McGregor’s Garden

Mr. McGregor’s Garden
Wordless Wednesday

Mr. McGregor from The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Larger Version

More Sedona Snapshots – D700

More Sedona Snapshots – D700

Here are a few more snapshots all of them were taken with the D700 camera and the 105mm and 50mm lenses. The first shot is some Sycamore leaves that were still hanging on in the late afternoon sun. The light at that time of day seems a little more magical in Sedona then it does at home. It must be all the earth tones that surround you. Not just in the landscape but in the building materials and decorations. This is one of the few botanical photos I scored on the trip.

This was taken behind some of the stores on Main Street. I don’t know if it is called Main Street but it should be. The road is actually State Route 89A. Again the late afternoon sunlight was working. All the rocks have names but I only found out a few of them.


This third shot was going down some stairs at an outdoor gallery. It was a quick snap as the figures seemed like they didn’t want their pictures taken. It is hard to describe and not scary. More regal than anything else.

Variegated Algerian Ivy

Variegated Algerian Ivy
Hedera canariensis 'Gloire de Marengo'
(HED-er-uh) (kuh-nair-ee-EN-sis)
Synonyms: Canary Island Ivy, North African Ivy, Madeira Ivy

This was one of the most colorful plants we have seen in Sedona. It was almost completely covering a large wall and added a lot to the earth tone of the stucco. It was nice to see as it is not that hardy in Connecticut. You can grow it there but a lot of times it will die back to the roots and doesn’t really have a chance to get very big by the end of the season.

There have been a few Pansy plantings but they have all looked a little beat up from the weather. Here is a nice red/purple one.


There are a lot of these statues, wall coverings and other artworks all over. This has been really enjoyable. You never know what is going to be around the corner. This one looked old but I’m not sure. The plant was a Gold Dust Tree (Aucuba japonica).


These pictures were all shot with the Nikon Coolpix P6000 compact camera.

Garden Face

Garden Face
Wordless Wednesday

Plant Head Statue

Plant Head Statue
Wordless Wednesday

ABC Wednesday F is For Fern

ABC Wednesday F is For Fern
Tasmanian Tree Fern
Dicksonia Antarctica
(dik-so-nee-uh)

If you are here for Wordless Wednesday please scroll down to the next post. Thanks for visiting.

Tree Fern is one of my favorite plants. They are graceful, easy to cultivate and beautiful. I took this photo with a 5 MP Nikon Coolpix 5400. This photo underwent a little photoshop work to help bring out the color.


This is a ‘f’ace sculpture I took down in Florida. I don’t think I would have one in my garden but it looked good in the tropical setting. I do know not to underestimate what a little bit of whimsy can bring to the garden. It is sometimes just what is needed. This piece was actually very intricate and well put together.

Here is my ABC Blogroll. If you want to be included please leave a comment to that effect. This project has grown exponentially and it is tough to keep up.

mrs nesbitts place
hin's photoblog
tech the man
a bit of this a dash of that
Little Rock Daily Photo
strolling through Georgia
Ruth's Garden Blog
kate isis
photography by kml
AVCR8TEUR'S Blog
Salty Dogs
The Modern Goddess
Simply Sage
author blog
kai
Mollitudes
ten forty
Neva
Ackworth born, gone West
Secluded Habitat
katch photo
Mr. Mapper
The Max Files
Watch me, No Watch me
Peter Miller
Lynette
Andrea’s Thought of the Day
Photowannabe
RuneE’s Visual Norway
Happy One
Jim Baker Photography
Azure
HPY
cre8tiva
NYCindividual
Lilli and Nevada
Bonnie
Outhouse of Canada
imac

Digital Shutter Mania
Dirty Knees
Dragonstar
Veg Plotting
Erin
Gordon
GAWO
arne’s blog
kostas
petunia
postcards from paulie
kim

ABC Wednesday - S is for Sculpture

Detail of “Grande Disco” , by Arnaldo Pomodo.

ABC Wednesday S is for Sculpture

If you are here for Wordless Wednesday scroll down to the next post. Please consider joining ABC Wednesdays.
“Kiosque L’Evide” by Jean Dubuffet. 1970-1984. Painted Polyester Resin.

“Grande Disco”, Arnaldo Pomodo.

On Sunday I went to the World Headquarters of PepsiCo to visit the Donald M. Kendall Sculpture Garden. The garden is located in Purchase, New York, 31 miles north of New York City. Pepsi’s headquarters is surrounded by 168 acres of rolling gardens and grass. The same person that designed the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, Edward Durrell Stone, designed the buildings in 1970. Three landscape architects designed the grounds, Russell Page, E.D. Stone Jr. (the son of the architect), and Francois Goffinet. The gardens were laid out to showcase the sculpture collection. I had a wonderful visit and I had forgotten how beautiful the garden was since my last visit several years ago. Like I said about the chewing gum business (Wrigley family) when I visited Catalina Island there must be good money in soda!



Now originally I had about ten pictures of the different sculptures to show but I accidentally deleted the 120 photos I took before saving them. This led me on an odyssey to try and recover the files. I eventually had to download ZAR (it’s a free image recovery program) to my wife’s Dell and while the program did recover many of the 400 photos that were erased when I wrote a CD to transfer over to my Mac something was lost and I only got a few of the photos (about 60) in usable condition. Oh well, I really tried and after several crashes and a lot of spinning I decided to go with these pictures. There is no free image recovery program for Mac that I could find. So I guess in this one case Windows is better. Needless to say I would have just junked the pictures if they weren’t for my ABC post. I am sorry I can’t show a lot of the beautiful pieces of art and plants they have at the garden. I may go back next weekend with a better plan.

This is some of what I recovered ☹


Back to the art:

My apologies to the artist whose pieces are posted here and not identified. The pictures I took of the tags didn’t get recovered. Not that you need a plug from me. These pictures were all taken with the Nikon 50mm/1.8. I used the aperture priority mode and let the camera set the shutter speed. I also used some exposure compensation and a circular polarizer on some shots. It is a wonderful lens and it was purposely the only lens I brought on my trip to the garden. The best way to get to know a lens is to use it.

mrs nesbitts place
hin's photoblog
tech the man
a bit of this a dash of that
Little Rock Daily Photo
photoxication
Kissing the Dogwood
strolling through Georgia
Ruth's Garden Blog
kate isis
photography by kml
AVCR8TEUR'S Blog
Salty Dogs
The Modern Goddess
Simply Sage
author blog
kai
Mollitudes
ten forty
Neva
Ackworth born, gone West
Secluded Habitat
katch photo
Mr. Mapper
The Max Files
Oswegan
Watch me, No Watch me
Peter Miller
Lynette
Andrea’s Thought of the Day
Photowannabe

Captions

Stately trees. Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) showing fall color.

I saw that I went over a 100,000 page views last night. Who would have ever thought that. Thanks to everyone, that just goes to show how many people have an interest in gardening, flowers and photography. I have loved all the comments and things I have learned from everyone out there. Keep it coming!

Garden Statues from Skylands

Garden Statues from Skylands
The New Jersey State Botanical Garden

If you came for Wordless Wednesday scroll down to the next post.

Short post today as I am experiencing a few computer problems. Everything was working so well for so long that something had to crop up. Luckily I have almost everything backed up to disk now. That takes a lot of the worry out of it. Everything seems to be working again.

These are some of the beautiful statues they had at the New Jersey State Botanical Garden. Normally this kind of thing is just okay with me but when you have a garden that big and the statues are tastefully blended into the landscape and garden they work very well. To me accents in the garden are never as important as the plants themselves but I know for some people it is the other way around. I tried to find out some information on the Eagle sculptures but didn’t come up with anything. They are very cool and are located right at the front entrance.


This next statue is ‘Diana’, Goddess of the Hunt and of the Woods. It is a copy of the 4th Century B.C. Greek statue. It was cast in lead in London in 1920 and purchased for Skylands in 1924. This was a beautiful piece of art that was right on the edge of where the garden met the woods.


I liked this planter. It had these lion heads on two sides and a face of a woman on the other two. It was in the center of the annual garden. The annual garden looked like it had been quite nice during the season. Of course during our visit it had gone by.

I just found out last night that my sister is moving from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Glen Ellen, California. Hmmm, I can sense some wine tastings in my future.