Formal Decorative Dahlia

Formal Decorative Dahlia
Dahlia ‘Hy Sockeye’

After having some business in Long Island yesterday I scooted over to Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay. They were having the annual Dahlia show but it opened really late and I couldn’t stick around for that. I was a little like the kid at the candy store with my face pasted against the glass looking at the flowers. Lucky for me the Paul Callahan Dahlia Garden is adjacent to the show so I snapped a couple quick pictures including this black and white macro of ‘Hy Sockeye’. It was a little bit of a relief to see that the Dahlias in the garden weren’t up to the usual standard as I found the same thing in my gardens.

Too bad there wasn’t a tag on this Dahlia as it was my favorite. Not the biggest flower (4-5 inches across) but stunning in color and detail. The Dahlia flowers with the different colored tips always catch me eye and I thought this one was exceptional.


Here is a bonus flower since it is Sunday. See more flowers from all over the world at Today’s Flowers .


Pink Canna Lily
Canna x generalis
(KAN-uh) (jen-er-RAY-liss)

This flower was blooming outside the greenhouse at Planting Fields. The color was a little washed out probably from the hot location. Pink is not the most usual color for Cannas and it was nice to see it.

2009 National Dahlia Show

2009 National Dahlia Show
Planting Fields Arboretum
Oyster Bay, Long Island

Both the Dahlia Show and Dahlia Garden at Planting Fields were stunning. The show is a national one that is hosted by the Mid-Island Dahlia Society . The flowers were of every conceivable shape and color and the arrangements and bouquets really caught my eye. The garden at the arboretum was in good form with no signs of the disease that wiped out my Dahlias late in the season.

The first Dahlia is ‘Sunshine Paul’ and the second is ‘Harvest Moonlight’.


On a whim before leaving I decided to throw the 24mm lens in my camera bag. Officially it is a Sigma 24mm f/1.8 EX DG Aspherical Macro lens. All of these pictures were shot with it. It is a great lens and I had forgotten what fun it can be to have something that wide. One thing about this lens is it can focus very closely to the subject (7.1 inches) and that can give some funky results. The price must have gone up, as my copy was about $400 US new, which in terms of lenses is kind of a bargain.



The Lantana flower shows how close you can focus with the 24mm. It was nice to use on the Dahlias since they are so big it really fills the frame of the picture.



For more flower pictures from around the world check out:
Today’s Flowers. The links open at 1400 GMT.

Three Black and Whites

Three Black and Whites
Today’s Flowers

It is turning out to be quite garden touring weekend for me. Yesterday I visited both Bailey Arboretum and Planting Fields Arboretum in Long Island, New York. Today we are going to the Garden Conservancy’s Open Day at Stonecrop Gardens in Cold Spring, NY. The Long Island gardens were in great shape. All the rain and cool temperatures had everything looking lush and a shade of green that the usual hot and dry summers out there have failed to produce the last few years.

These pictures were all shot with the D700 and the 105mm VR lens on the Monochrome setting. That seems to work out better for me than converting color shots. I feel that I am finally really getting the hang of the D700’s dynamic 51-point auto focus system. Using the other controls (and there are a lot of them) is starting to come more naturally, also. I still love my D70s camera but the D700 is ending up out of the camera bag more and more.

The first shot is a Garden Phlox from Planting Fields. The Dahlia Garden there was really just starting to come into its own and the Daylily collection was just past peak bloom but still had a lot of flowers. The Main Greenhouse provided a blast of color and looked really healthy.

This picture is from Bailey Arboretum. Everything is a bit overgrown there but there are few nice display gardens and a lot of nice old specimens of trees. I kept finding huge dwarf evergreens tucked into the garden here and there and that is always a delight for me. The woods and paths at this park are pretty amazing and if you go don’t be afraid to do a little bushwhacking.

Here is a little contrast between the Black and white Daylily flower and the color shot. Both are the same flower. It was in the Planting Field’s Daylily collection (which is small but mighty) and it didn’t, unfortunately, have a sign.



For more flower pictures from around the world check out:
Today’s Flowers . The links open at 1400 GMT.

Black Daylily

Daylily
Hemerocallis 'Kathryn’s Black’
(hem-er-oh-KAL-iss)

On Saturday while wondering around Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay, New York I almost groaned at the sight of the Daylily Garden. I have been taking so many daylily pictures that I really didn’t want to take anymore. Having thought that I said to myself, well maybe, if they have something extraordinary I’ll take a couple of pictures. Of course they had many stunning cultivars. Here are three, the only one that is named is the deep red almost black one and I am not sure if that is right. The only reference on the net was on a cultivar list but no other matches came up. It is rare that plant stumps Google.


The first picture of ‘Kathryn’s Black’ is with the 24/1.8 Sigma lens and the second is the with the 60mm Nikon micro lens. The close up doesn’t do the color justice. The far shot shows how dark it looked from a few feet away. I am happy with these pics as the weather was not cooperating. It was in the high 90’s F with humidity and a hot, dry and dusty wind. The problem with taking pictures with those conditions is some of the flowers and plants don’t look their freshest. The Daylilies didn’t seem to mind.


This yellow one had huge flowers!

Nikon 50mm/1.8 Shots

Red Lily of the Valley Shrub (Pieris japonica 'Flamingo')

Nikon 50mm/1.8 Shots

Phillip over at Dirt Therapy commented the other day that he was thinking of buying a Nikon 50mm lens so I wanted to post a few pictures to maybe help his decision. When I was leaving the Main Greenhouse at Planting Fields on Sunday I decided to put on the 50 and shoot my way out to the parking lot. Now conditions were basically terrible, it was raining, very late afternoon on an overcast day and I was tired. I think that most lenses, especially the $100 ones, would not do as well under those circumstances. Working with the 1.8 setting can be a little difficult with the nature shots. It really gives a razor thin depth of field.

I took about 20 pictures on my way to the truck. This first shot is one of my favorite early blooming spring shrubs, Pieris japonica. A lot of people call it Andromeda but I think that is technically incorrect. It is a great broadleaf evergreen that can grow in sun and shade. It likes rich soil and adequate moisture. I have seen grow in some pretty wet conditions also. The Estate has a lot of different cultivars and species (25+) as it one of the owner’s favorite plants. It seems like I see a couple new cultivars every year and it is easy to find one that pleases, there is such a variety. This one is the red flowered cultivar ‘Flamingo’. Some of the varieties have red buds but only a few have this red of a flower when they are open. The red and pink flower types are just starting to get popular and I think they will be seen more and more. I am going to save some comments for when the Pieris come into flower in my area (Long Island is a week or two ahead of us) and hope to do a little series on the different cultivars.


I have been photographing a lot of Witch Hazels, as they are really one of the earliest shrubs to bloom here. Often times they bloom in mid-February or even earlier depending on the weather. I took a couple of pictures of this plant because it is one I hadn’t seen before, its official name is Hamamelis x intermedia 'Barmstedt Gold'. This was a small specimen so I can’t comment on the shape or branching but the flower color is superb. Its a lot darker yellow than ‘Arnold’s Promise’.


This tree is a China Fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata) and is located right next to the parking lot. I try and take a picture of it every time I visit Planting Fields, mostly it is an exercise in frustration. I decided to shoot it at F2 since that is the weekly assignment on a photography forum I am a member of. They say that this tree is hardy in Zone 6b (-5 F) but I haven’t seen them growing in Connecticut, maybe you could get away with it along the shore. It is a fantastic tree that is very stately and gets up to about 40 feet tall. Make sure you get yours from a reputable source as they can be variable depending on where the cutting was taken from the parent tree. There is a wonderful blue version available, also.


I took this picture in the greenhouse. They have a great Orchid collection at Planting Fields including some rare ones. I am including this picture for a friend that asked me to post some 50mm floral shots. One other thing I would like to add about the 50mm is that it is quite small and almost toy looking. I like the fact that it is light weight and the build quality is fine as mine has proved.

If you have a chance please visit Phillip’s blog. He is located in Florence, Alabama and is a great gardener and very handy with the camera. I like visiting to see all the stuff that I can’t grow because of the climate around here.

More Long Island Camellias

More Long Island Camellias

Again here are a few Camellia shots from Planting Fields. After a grinding Monday I was so happy to have had a few hours to shoot pictures on Sunday. It sure was relaxing to look at the flowers and snap a few pictures. I can see that work is going to be hectic so this is the first Tuesday that I haven’t done Wordless Wednesday in quite awhile. WW is only fun when you can return the visits to the other people’s blogs. In general I will be probably be a little less wordy here than I was in the winter. I do really want to thank the people that visited and commented over the winter. You helped make my idle time a little more pleasurable.

Yesterday I said what lenses I took with me and I thought it would be fun to post one picture from each lens. This first one is the 60mm / 2.8 Micro-Nikkor. I can’t say enough good things about this lens. It is on my camera 75% of the time. I use it as a walking around lens, too. It was $349 (US) after the rebate when I bought with the D70s. It really has done a yeoman’s service under tough conditions. I would like to try out the Nikon 105mm Macro sometime but this will always be my main macro lens.

The first picture is ‘Latifolia Sport’. More correctly it is Camellia japonica ‘Latifolia Sport’. That is genus Camellia (capitalize), species japonica (lower case) and cultivar ‘Latifolia Sport’ (capitalize, single quotation marks). A cultivar (which is a combination of cultivate and variety) is a plant that is produced in cultivation by selective breeding and is of garden origin (not wild). Now I am not sure if this was a true sport, which is defined as a flower or branch that has an unusual deviation or mutation from the type of growth usually shown by the plant. I didn’t notice anything real different about this plant but I wasn’t looking all that hard. Latifolia means that it has wide leaves.


This next picture is from the Nikon 50mm/1.8 lens. I have enjoyed this lens but don’t use it as often I would like. These are some Clivia (C. miniata) buds that were inside the Camellia House. About 90% of the time I use this lens at F/1.8 but on Sunday decided to try it at some other apertures and found it pretty sharp throughout the range. You can really get some cool backgrounds with this one. The only thing I don’t like about it is the minimum focusing range; it is a little too far. For the money everybody should have a 50mm. One note on Clivias, don’t divide them if you want flowers anytime soon. They can take 10 years or more to flower after division. I learned that the hard way but have been back in business with the ones at work for a couple of years now.

Camellia japonica 'Purity'

Here is a shot with the Sigma 17-70mm/2.8-4.5 lens. I have said that this lens was okay and has taken some really nice pictures. Sigma recently came out with a better and slightly more expensive version of this lens. Overall it is a good trooper having survived a couple of falls and generally nasty conditions. I can’t figure if I like the 18-70mm Nikon lens, which came with the camera, (I gave to Karen for her camera) or this lens. It does seem to auto-focus well and is great in wide-angle low-light situations. This is ‘Purity’ Camellia again; you can see it is a real beautiful white.


Finally here is a picture from what I hope to be a photo series of ‘Flowers in the Dirt’. It is just something I have noticed over the last few years and I think I will start taking pictures of them and see what they look like as a group.

Japanese Camellia 'Alice Stakes'

Japanese Camellia
Camellia japonica 'Alice Stakes'
(kuh-MEE-lee-a) (juh-PON-ih-kuh)
Synonym: Common Camellia

Yesterday I had to drive out to Long Island so even though the weather was less than nice decided I would bring my camera and visit Planting Fields and a garden I hadn’t been before, Bailey’s Arboretum. They are only a few miles apart and both were worth visiting. Planting Fields had their Camellia Collection in almost full bloom and it was a magnificent sight. Utterly amazing and breathtaking. Here is a link to the previous post I did on the
Camellia House.

It is one of the largest collections of Camellia grown ‘under glass’ (greenhouse) in the world.

I couldn’t find any references to the ‘Alice Stakes’ cultivar. The flowers were not very large compared to some of the other Camellias but it was perfectly shaped and a very nice soft pink.

I had my Nikon Coolpix 8400 in my bag along with the D70s yesterday. I also had my Sigma 17-70mm, Nikon 50mm/1.8, and of course the 60mm Micro-Nikkor. I brought the 8400 because I wanted to shoot some Black and White and it is easy to switch between color and B&W on that camera. It also features a 24mm (equivalent) lens, which is a nice foil to the 60mm. Anyway I got this picture of Camellia jap. ‘Purity’.


I think I may try to work some more in Black and White this season. It has to be the right flower but I going to be looking at things with the idea about how they would look in B&W.

Forest Lily

Forest Lily
Veltheimia bracteata
(velt-HIME-ee-uh) (brak-tee-AY-tuh)
Synonyms: Sand Onion (sandui), Winter Red Hot Poker

Here is a USDA Zone 9b plant that I wasn’t familiar with till I saw it at Planting Fields Arboretum. It is actually a bulb that does well in pots on a windowsill, shady patio or in the greenhouse. It likes bright light without direct sun. Outside it likes a shady or semi-shady location with rich soil. It can tolerate light frost and is often semi-evergreen. Once planted the bulbs should not be disturbed.


There are two different species in Veltheimia after a consolidation of three species into Veltheimia bracteata. The other species is the closely related V. capensis, which also had a couple of species added to it. There is a cultivar available called 'Lemon Flame'. The flowers are a light green-yellow color.

Golden Nellie R. Stevens Holly

Hybrid Holly
Ilex x cv. 'Gold Nellie R. Stevens'
(EYE-leks)

One of things I enjoyed at Planting Fields was their huge Ilex collection. Both in the scope and size of the plants. This cultivar is one type I had never seen before, and realize that it is not for everyone. The regular or normal Nellie Stevens Holly is a beautiful shrub or tree but it doesn’t grow well in my part of Connecticut. I would say about 6 out of 10 winters it is severely leaf burned and it sustains some damage 8 out of 10 years. Even though mine are planted in a sheltered location the constant winter defoliation has been taking its toll. It doesn’t actually kill the tree but makes more of a semi-evergreen, which kind of defeats the purpose of having a Holly. It seems these problems also effect the berry production as I have only had a few scattered berries in the 18 years I have been growing mine even though there are plenty of males around.


Now on Long Island they seem to thrive and are not as affected by the winter. They can attain a height of 15 to 25 feet (or more) and get a large spread. It can be quite vigorous and adaptable, growing several feet in one season. Although many books list it being hardy in USDA Zone 6 I would have to add that it is root hardy but does much better in Zone 7. It is a hybrid between I. cornuta x I. aquifolium and I couldn’t find any references to the gold cultivar.

Yellow berries on American Holly Tree (Ilex opaca f. xanthocarpa)

I have been trying to get a picture of the yellow berried form of the American Holly Tree for a long time. Mine don’t seem to get a great crop of berries and are located in a dark corner of the garden, hence difficult to shoot pictures of. I didn’t do much better at Planting Fields with this picture but they had a lot of different specimens that were loaded with yellow berries. So, I am posting this picture of Ilex opaca f. xanthocarpa to get it out of my system. This will hopefully allow me move on and get that picture of Lily of the Valley flowers I have been trying to take forever.

There several yellow berried cultivars of American and other Hollies. I think they add a little spice to a Holly collection.

ABC Wednesday – C is for Camellia

Camellia japonica 'Debutante'

ABC Wednesday – C is for Camellia

If you’re here for Wordless Wednesday please scroll down to the next post.

These pictures are from the Camellia House at Planting Fields Arboretum. I think it is one of the largest collections of Camellias under glass (about 300 plants) in the world. The plants, which are mostly Camellia japonica are planted in the ground and maintained to a high standard. C. sinencis, C. sasanqua and C. reticulata are also represented in the collection.



Two of the most prominent firms in American Landscape Architecture designed the house (A. Robeson Sargent and the Olmstead Brothers), which housed the Camellia plants the owner brought back from the Isle of Guernsey in 1917.


Camellias like to grow in cool conditions and this thermometer shows that the temperature was 48 degrees F (9 C) inside. I call this a Minimum/Maximum thermometer, although there is probably a more technical term for it. It shows the same current temperature on both sides. The small lines indicate the lowest temperature since the last reset on the left side and the highest on the right side. For instance when I looked at the thermometer at work the other day, which I hadn’t reset in a few months, it read that we had a high temperature of 63 F (17 C) and a low of 6 F (-14 C). Quite a range and illustrative of the winter roller coaster we have been riding here. Back to the Camellia House thermometer, it shows a high temperature of 59 F (15 C) and a low of 41 F (5 C).

Growing Camellias is about keeping them cool and imitating their native Korean, Japanese, and Chinese mountain habitat. They must be kept cool to bloom properly. Too much heat and the buds will fall off. They do best in a North or East window or some shade outside as they can get sunburned. There are several more hardy varieties coming to market for Zone 7 gardeners and I saw that Planting Fields had numerous ones planted outside. Maybe they will make a Zone 6 plant soon.


I saw these cracked clay pots and couldn’t resist the double ‘c’.


Here is the ABC Wednesday Blogroll. I have added some new blogs at the end. It seems to be growing and I hope I have time to visit everyone.

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
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

Unusual Flowers from Long Island

Unusual Flowers from Long Island

I understand that some of the flowers are not as unusual for some people but it shows a couple of the botanical oddities I saw on Long Island last weekend. The first is Cymbidium finlaysonianum and I saw this at Planting Fields. It was strange because of the long pendulous flower spike. I hadn’t seen it before and I couldn’t find a lot of information on it except that it is an epiphyte that occurs in Southeast Asia.




This next one is a Double Shasta Daisy. You don’t see it too often but it is becoming a bit more popular. They are cool because there are all sorts of variations of the doubles available.










This Yellow Pitcher Plant (Sarracenia flava) was growing in a whole group of different Pitcher Plants that were crammed together in a cold frame with about an inch of water in the bottom. I hadn’t seen that before. I actually grew some Pitcher Plants here in Connecticut for several years but then we had a couple of bad winters and I lost them.



I wish I had sited them in a warmer part of the garden. *Sigh* Another lesson learned on micro climate gardening.

Rose Arbors at Planting Fields

Rose Arbors at Planting Fields
Oyster Bay, New York
http://www.plantingfields.org

On Saturday I also visited Planting Fields Arboretum in Oyster Bay, NY. I have been there many times before usually when I am visiting the wholesale nurseries on Long Island. It is quite a collection of plants and history and I think just about anybody could find something of botanical interest amongst the gardens. Although I have noticed that the maintenance and planting schemes seem to have fallen off a bit in the last couple of years. Please don’t take this wrong it is still beautiful place and well worth visiting. I was just looking at it with a very critical eye and comparing it to previous tours.



One of the highlights of my visit on Saturday was seeing the Rose Arbors in full bloom. Now that was a world-class display and probably one of the best rose plantings I have seen (and I have seen a couple of good ones). I tried to figure out a way to photograph the roses but only came up with these meager shots, none of which show the true beauty and scale of the display. It was utterly amazing and breathtaking. The rose is ‘Dorothy Perkins’. At the other end the last few arbors had a red climbing rose and a whitish/pink one.



‘Dorothy Perkins’ was introduced by Jackson & Perkins (figure that one) in 1901. It is very fragrant and was once the most popular rambling rose in the United States.