Perky's Bat Tower

-->

Perky’s Bat Tower

Mile Marker 17

Lower Sugarloaf Key, Florida

Wordless Wednesday

Bat Tower

Messina White Chrysanthemum

White Chrysanthemum

Chrysanthemum x grandiflorum 'Messina'

(kris-AN-the-mum)

This mum is again proving to be an early bloomer. We were on the hunt for some color for next weekend and got a few of these. There is a big party at the Greenwich estate next weekend and a few early Chrysanthemums certainly brightened up the landscape. There is still a good assortment of flowers out in the garden now. The Japanese Anemones, Black-eyed Susans and Asters are putting on a good show. The shrub roses and even some Hydrangea have been hanging on.

I really got a feeling for the people that have to grow these types of plants on a timely basis. There are a couple hundred of Chrysanthemums that have wintered over in the garden (for the last couple of years) and I have been sweating getting them to bloom next weekend. In truth I have only been partially successful in the color end of the equation a lot will be blooming over the next couple of weeks, which is partially due to just being later strains of mums.

Since it Sunday here are a couple black and white pictures as the bonus snapshots. The first is just a collection of bamboo stakes and it looked cooler and more geometric in real life. The exposure was a little difficult to manage with the bright natural light from the top. Both of these were taken with my Coolpix 8400, which generally does pretty well in monochrome.

This next shot is an interior shot of Fort Zachary Taylor in Key West, Florida.

I am not much of a military tour person but found the history and set up of this fort interesting. 

 

Cavendishia allenii

Cavendishia allenii

This photo is from a spring visit to the NYBG in the Bronx. It has always been a dream of mine to take a good photograph inside the ‘forest’ part of the Conservatory and finally I did it. There are numerous challenges to taking pictures inside that part of the building including having your camera fogged up from coming into the moist humid air from being cold outside and of course the lack of light. When looking up information on this plant there is not very much. Mostly just listings of its name. One site was calling it a tropical blueberry but there was nothing blue about it. I did find out it is an epiphyte, which means it grows non-parasitically on a host plant and without soil. Cavendishia allenii is also a native Central America (Panama) like the rest of the 100 species in the genus (a few are native to South America).

Since it is Sunday here is the Digital Flower Pictures.com Sunday bonus shot. It is a garden gate that we saw down in Key West, Florida. You can see the photo is slightly tilted, which is the best way to leave a bar in Key West. What happens to me down there typically is we go in order 2 drinks and Karen decides that it is too strong for her and I end up downing both drinks. I really loved the ironwork on his gate and the careful painting of each rose made it outstanding.

Well I can tell a new month has started, as I had to make all new folders for September. That is how I file all the photos and words from this site. That seems the most manageable way to handle things.

"The morrow was a bright September morn;

The earth was beautiful as if newborn;

There was nameless splendor everywhere,

That wild exhilaration in the air,

Which makes the passers in the city street

Congratulate each other as they meet."

-   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Purple Tropical Waterlily

Purple Tropical Waterlily

Nymphaea cv.

(NIM-fee-uh)

  

These are tropical water lilies. They were growing in Southern Florida last winter. The kind of transparent purple color was pretty amazing. This picture was shot with my Coolpix 8400. It is a good compact camera and I remember how excited I was to get an 8MP camera at the time. The pictures it took were huge and nice too. The 8400 has a very good lens on it.

Here is the bonus snapshot for Sunday. I don’t know why but I have been thinking about this building a lot lately. A little digging provided this shot that was never posted here before.

Key West Art and Historical Society

The Custom House, 1891

Key West, Florida

Key West Sunset Cruise

Key West Sunset Cruise

Key West, Florida

This is from last winter. I have come to the conclusion that a vacation would be a good thing right now. End of the season blues, I guess. Since we have so much work to pack into the end of the season I won’t be going anywhere soon.

Key West Waterlily

Waterlily
Nymphaea cv.
(NIM-fee-uh)

A couple more flowers from Papa’s house (Hemingway) in Key West. The waterlily was nice to see blooming in its small pond. The color was great and there were several of the lilies blooming. The gardens at the house were in good condition offering a good selection of tropical plants. It wasn’t like some of the yards we saw on Key West, which featured overgrown and totally out of control foliage. That type of garden was fun to look at and offered the owners a lot of privacy but if it were mine I would have had to go through it with a chainsaw and machete but to each its own.

See more flowers from around the world at Today’s Flowers .

I am excited to visit one of my favorite places in the United States tomorrow, Fairchild Tropical Botanical Gardens . I’ll be the guy waiting at the gate for it to open with all the camera gear. Actually I am bringing the two cameras and a couple of lenses. It is important to enjoy looking at the plants as well as taking pictures of them.

Since it is Sunday and that means a bonus flower here on the Digital Flower Pictures.com blog. Here is one that has me stumped (if you know what it is let me know). I thought it was a Mimosa tree as the flower is very similar as was the growth of the shrubby tree but the foliage didn’t match at all. The powder puff flowers are always fun to look at and the color on this tree was very nice.

Bridge in the Florida Keys

Bridge in the Florida Keys

Since everyone around here has been dreaming about a Florida vacation this winter I was looking through some old photos and found this bridge picture. You can see it is a bridge built on top of another old bridge that was originally for trains. The Keys are a unique and exotic area of the United States. If you are not familiar with the area here is a Wikipedia link for some more information:
Florida Keys

I hope to be reporting live from down there soon.

Last night someone gave me tickets to see the great blues singer Shemekia Copeland in Fairfield Connecticut’s Stage One Theater. It is a very small an intimate venue. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen a blues concert. Both her and her band seemed on top of their game. The opening act was Johnnyswim a lively husband and wife duo with good material and beautiful voices. I had my camera but the battery died about half way through the show.

Key West Sunset

Key West Sunset
Key West, Florida
Wordless Wednesday

See more Florida Keys pictures at the New Digital Flower Pictures.com:
Click Here

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------




Red Bow from Sedona
Ruby Tuesday
See more Ruby Tuesday at Work of the Poet.

Visit our Sedona Album here

Tree Nymph Butterfly

Tree Nymph Butterfly
Idea leuconoe
Synonyms: Rice Paper Butterfly, Paper Kite Butterfly

This picture is from last winter at the Key West Butterfly & Nature Conservatory . It is an interesting and fun attraction located at 1316 Duval Street in Key West. While I thought the $10 US entrance fee was a little high on the way in soon I was happily snapping pictures of both the abundant butterflies and tropical flowers. I miss not going to Florida this year and have been strolling down memory lane through some of my pictures.


For more pictures of the Fabulous Florida Keys click here

We are still babysitting our dog, which had surgery a couple of days ago. She seems better but has moments when she seems to be relapsing. Molly has been eating and drinking and even stepping outside all of which are good signs. We have just been trying to make her comfortable.

Wordless Wednesday~ Sunset Captain in Key West, Florida

Wordless Wednesday
Sunset Captain Key West, Florida
More Florida Keys Photos

Two Orchids

Two Orchids

This Orchid was blooming at work. I was surprised to see it . I took all the Orchids out of the conservatory and just tucked them in among the tropical foliage plants that I put on the terrace. I usually don’t bother with the Orchids as they seem to be getting enough light and water. The tag that was in the pot had faded away and I couldn't tell what the name is.



I have been going over some old files from Florida in February of 2006. I saw this orange Orchid blooming at Nancy Forrester’s Secret Garden. I read a lot of complaints about the condition of the garden and the admission price but I found it a lot of fun with a good mix of botanical stuff. Not bad at all for an ‘in-town’ type of garden.
I uploaded several new pictures to my Florida Keys webpage if anyone is interested. There a few good pictures but in some respects represent an extra culling of all of the files.

Florida Keys/West Palm Album

Audubon House and Tropical Gardens

Audubon House and Tropical Gardens
Key West, Florida

Well since I am just sitting here ticking off the days until I leave for Florida I thought I would feature a garden from Key West. The Audubon House and Tropical Gardens is a favorite tourist attraction for me. I have visited several times over several years and I must say that each time it is a little more upgraded. You can see from the black and white view that the tree canopy took a hit from all the hurricanes (this was last winter) but I found the gardens below in excellent and robust condition. I am sure by now that most of the trees have come back. They were shooting out a ton of new growth last year. If you want the history of the house click on the link, it is very interesting. John James Audubon just stayed here; he didn’t own the house, during his trip to the Florida Keys and the Dry Tortugas in 1832. The house has a lot of historic information and pictures and is perfectly restored. The furniture collection is fabulous and really looks authentic. One reason I like the one-acre garden is that there aren’t too many other people. I went twice in the month I was in Key West and one visit found no one else in sight. There is a nice store with all types of Audubon things and some other tasteful items.



You can see the rest of my pictures of the Florida Keys by clicking here

Levant Cotton

Levant Cotton
Gossypium herbaceum nigra ‘Black Cotton’
(gos-SIP-ee-um) (her-buh-KEE-um)

Well I finally found a plant that pretty much stumped Google. There really wasn’t much information on it. I took some pictures of this plant at Pound Ridge Nurseries in Westchester County. It is a fun place as they carry a lot of different unusual plants. I was immediately drawn to the color of this plant. It was sitting on a ‘sold’ cart with some yellow and pink mums. It was hugely effective against the colors. This was the first time I had seen this plant and the little information I could find stated the flowers and cotton bolls (seedpods) are very nice. Come to think of it there were a few unopened seedpods on these plants. They were wonderfully weird. I didn’t see any cotton though. The foliage alone is worth growing this plant. Since this is a tender perennial that thrives in full sun and humidity I am sure we will be seeing a lot more of it.



I was going through my camera bag and found an old memory card with pictures from February. We packed up the cameras, computers and dogs and spent the whole month on Cudjoe Key, which is about 28 miles from Key West. I have some other pictures on the Florida Keys section of Digital Flower Pictures.com. Here is the best photo of the bunch that was on the card. It is a night shot from the historic Harbor walk. It was a 30 second exposure at F13. It was hard to take long exposures in the Keys because of the wind. It is always blowing. I used the D70s kit lens (Nikkor DX AF-S 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED) at a focal length of 28 mm. It is a pretty good lens but I don’t use it that often.

This was taken at Bill Baggs State Park on Key Biscayne, Florida. It is a lovely island that has a beautiful park at the end of it. You may have seen the famous lighthouse that is perched on the beach. I saw some wild Vinca on the side of the road leading into the park and snapped this picture. The other tourists probably thought I was weird. I then altered it in Photoshop with a rotational blur and blacked out the background. I kind of wanted it to look like a ship’s propeller. I got to spend a month in the Florida Keys last winter and it was great. Nothing that great on the horizon for this winter so I will probably be stuck in dreary, drafty, snowy and cold Connecticut. Here it is only a couple of days into to Fall and I am talking of winter. I need to place a bulb order and have begun to browse the catalogs. Since I am working with someone that has a fenced in yard I am going to plant some tulips. Won’t that be a nice change.