Collarette Dahlia

Collarette Dahlia

Dahlia 'Alpen Cherub'

(DAHL-ya)

First things first, Happy Thanksgiving to all the American readers here. I hope the day is full of family, friends and good food. We are travelling this year to my brother’s area near Hartford (about 1.5 hours away). I am looking forward to seeing everyone.

Most of pictures posted here lately have been taken at times stretching over the last several seasons. There was one mum and a hardy geranium blooming in the garden this week but generally it is a dull and dreary landscape we are now dealing with. Since the foliage is now down you can see all the damage to the trees that happened during the snowstorm of a couple of weeks ago. The earlier Tropical Storm didn’t help either. It is just nature carrying on its business but it looks heartbreaking to me. Sometimes I just want to stop the truck and try and help some of the broken trees along the roads but haven’t so far.

Today’s Flower is a Collarette Dahlia. It is an especially elegant and sophisticated form of the familiar flower. “Alpen Cherub’ is a nice bushy free flowering variety. The flowers are small by Dahlia standards (2-4 inches across) but make up for that by blooming in well coordinated waves. It blooms proudly and the delicate shading on the extra petals is truly beautiful.

Tree Dahlia

Tree Dahlia
Dahlia imperialis
(DAHL-ya) (im-peer-ee-AL-is)

This monster perennial remains elusive and isn’t grown as much as it should be. This one was spotted in Southern California where the weather is mild enough for the November/December blooming time. This specimen was about 12 to 15 feet tall and didn’t have any stakes but some support is usually a good idea especially in windy areas. The flowers point downward, which is nice to see the detail and I was lucky to see a side shoot that had flowers low enough to photograph.

Happy Thanksgiving to the Americans. We are looking forward to having friends and family over today for a meal of turducken. I certainly have a lot to be thankful for this year so it is special. During the afternoon there will be a few moments when I am stealing away to my office to learn some songs for the gig on Saturday night.

This second shot is shown to provide a little scale for the Tree Dahlia. They are huge!

Late Season Shrub Roses

Late Season Shrub Rose

These roses were still looking good when I photographed them about 3 weeks ago. The color shading was beautiful and they smelled good, too. This group seemed handsome and was working well together . Roses can bloom quite late in the season and seem to be able to ignore the thermometer for a little while.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans out there. Although it is an American holiday other people can stop and think for a minute what they are thankful for. It doesn’t hurt anything and might make you happy.

I am sorry to have to enable comment moderation on this blog due to the tremendous amount of spam comments I have been receiving. It is easier just to moderate them then go back and try and remove them from the old posts. I don’t mind if someone is trying to leave a link to their business or website but lately there have been people leaving 50 plus comments, which isn’t going to be tolerated.

Thanksgiving Centerpiece

Thanksgiving Centerpiece

I got a late mum for the centerpiece of our Thanksgiving table. It is nice most of the family is here celebrating. To all the American readers out there Happy Thanksgiving and to everyone else Happy Thursday.

This was shot with the 50mm @ 1.8. I sure wish this mum came with a name tag!