Bougainvillea 'James Walker'

Bougainvillea 'James Walker'
(boo-gan-VIL-lee-uh)

Who doesn’t go to Hawaii and take a picture of Bougainvillea? It is kind of hard not to when it is planted in almost every yard. I guess it is kind of like tropical Forsythia in that way. It was blooming pretty heavy in the garden of the house we stayed at. The colors were all mixed up and that looked nice. This was the only named cultivar that was labeled. It was waiting to be planted and the name was written on the pot.


It seemed to working very well as a privacy fence although it looked like it needed to be pruned fairly often. The thorns were not evident but still sharp. I was taking pictures of it every morning and one morning as I walked by a thorn caught my sunglasses and ripped them off. Thankfully that was all it did other wise there would have been some pain involved.

We grow a couple of Bougainvillea in the conservatory at work and usally put a couple of plants out in pots as annuals. I am not the one to look to for cultural expertise. Try this ehow page by Barbara Fahs for more information.

‘James Walker’ seems also to be called ‘Ambience’. It has orange bracts that turn to hot pink. It really provides a nice contrast. This second picture shows how bright the colors are.

These next pictures were shot with the D70s and the 105mm VR Nikon lens. It is a powerful combo and when I remember to use the 105 on the D70 it usually produces good results. I hope you enjoy them as the Butterfly was being a teaser and generally uncooperative. It took a long time to get these two shots.




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Canna Lily and a Few Maui Snapshots

Canna Lily and a Few Maui Snapshots

This orangey-red Canna Lily was blooming in Upcountry Maui. Yesterday was all about trying to get over the trip home and going through the pictures from the trip.

It is again going to be windy and rainy and cold here today. A real typical fall New England day. There is still some autumn color left and hopefully the rain won’t knock it down before I can get out there with the camera.

The next picture is from Lahaina Harbor. Lahaina is a good place to hang out as a tourist as there are plenty of good restaurants, shops and scenery. There are even a couple of high end art galleries.
Click here for a Virtual Tour
(it does take a minute or two to load)


The vintage Mercedes-Benz was spotted in the cowboy town of Makawao. It is an interesting little place with some cafes and galleries. This thing was in showroom condition inside and out.


The last photo is from Ho'okipa Beach, which is famous for all the windsufers that go there. There were a couple of regular surfers there too.

Another Waterlily

Another Waterlily

We made it back to Connecticut after an 18 hour trip. It is raining and in the 40’s here right now. At least it isn’t snowing. I will be sorting these Hawaii pictures for a while. The flowers came out well but I am just not happy with the landscape shots I took. It was a short but sweet trip and totally different from the other times we have visited Hawaii. We met a lot of my sister’s friends and saw a bit more of daily life.

Today is going to be a little hectic but one of the main things is to get the dogs. I really missed Ruby and Juno. Planning for work next week is another item that needs to be taken care of. Reconnaissance of the gardens is the first thing.

This waterlily was blooming in the Upcountry section of Maui. I thought interesting because of the purple tips and the diminutive size. The Orchid table was a t a little roadside stand. The prices were pretty good as the plants were really beautiful and healthy.

Hawaiian Water Lily

Hawaiian Water Lily Close up

Wordless Wednesday

Lobster Claw and Flamingo Flower

Lobster Claw and Flamingo Flower
Heliconia and Anthurium
(hel-ih-KOH-nee-uh) (an-THUR-ee-um)
Maui, Hawaii


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Wordless Wednesday

Ruby Tuesday at Work of the Poet.

Orchid Tree

Orchid Tree
Bauhinia purpurea
(baw-HIN-ee-uh) (pur-PUR-ee-uh)
Synonyms: Butterfly Tree, Mountain Ebony, Geranium Tree

There are several specimens of this tree growing in the yard next door to the house we are staying at. It sure is a beautiful little tree and there seems to be a little fragrance coming from the flowers. After reading up on it there were several reports of being weak growing and unattractive out of flower. None of that matters right now, it looks beautiful!

Yesterday was the annual Maui Ukulele Festival and it was a lot of fun. I think I got a little too much sun. The music was great and there will probably be a few more pictures of the festival posted here later.

This probably the most famous ukulele player. Herb "Ohta-san" Ohta. He sounded fabulous. For more information.

Bird of Paradise

Bird of Paradise
Strelitzia reginae
(stre-LITZ-ee-uh) (ree-JIN-ay-ee)
Synonym: Crane Flower

Aloha. Yesterday we spent all day in the ‘upcountry’ part of Maui. Lets just say there were flowers everywhere. After attending the Scottish-Hawaiian Festival we drove over to the Winery and the Lavender Farm. The Winery features among other things Pineapple wines. The wines tasted good and the tasting was free. They had a nice garden at the winery also.
Tedeschi Vineyards

The lavender farm had a lot of lavender (go figure) and a wonderful garden. The garden is one of the best I have seen in the Hawaiian Islands. We ended up spending hours lost among the plants and flowers. That is were the Bird of Paradise picture was taken. This other picture is an Aloe bud that I saw on the side of the road as we walked up to the festival. Where we parked had a long Hibiscus hedge and when I opened the car door several branches and flowers poked into the car. My kind of parking spot!
Ali'i Kula Lavender Maui


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Julia Child Floribunda Rose

Julia Child Floribunda Rose

We made it to Maui and it was a sunny 85 degrees here when we finally landed. Karen got upgraded but I didn’t so I ended spending the 8.5 hour flight crammed in coach. For those that don’t know I am six foot six inches tall and of course there was another large person next to me. A bit of hell before paradise :lol:

These rose shots were taken at the NYBG Rose Garden last weekend. I will be prowling about for some Hawaiian flowers today and possibly some landscape photos.

‘Julia Child’
Registration Name: WEKvossutono
UK Name: ‘Absolutely Fabulous’
Breeder/Introduction: Tom Carruth (2004)/Weeks Roses
Petal Count: 30 to 40
Flower Size: 3”
Fragrance: Strong, licorice
Parentage: Seed: Voodoo × Hybrid of R. soulieana × 'Summerwine'
Pollen: ‘Top Notch’


This other shot is ‘Rainbow Knockout’ rose. A 2007 introduction by William J. Radler and Conard-Pyle (Star Roses). It had been trained into a small tree.

Helga Garden Mum

Garden Mum ‘Helga’
Chrysanthemum x morifolium 'Helga'
(chri-san' thah-mum) (mor-ee-FOH-lee-um)

This mum had an interesting habit and color. It was only about 10 inches tall but 24 inches wide. The effect of the color was less yellow as you moved away from it. Here is a link to some more information on Chrysanthemums:
Dr. Leonard Perry, Professor, University of Vermont


Tonight we are staying over at Newark Airport to prepare to fly to Maui on Friday. The flight goes Newark-Dallas-Maui. I am going to try and keep this site going from Hawaii but have to see what the internet situation is there. I hope to be out taking some good pictures. I haven’t packed anything yet so it is going to be a mad rush when I get home from work. Aloha to all.

Wide Angle Dahlia

Wide Angle Dahlia
Shot with a Sigma 24mm/f 1.8 EX DG Aspherical Macro lens
Nikon D70s
Wordless Wednesday

About Face Grandiflora Rose

Grandiflora Rose ‘About Face’
Synonyms: ‘Pride of Cheshire’, WEKosupalz
2005 All-America Rose Selection (AARS)

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Wordless Wednesday

Passionate Kisses Rose

Floribunda Rose
Rosa 'Passionate Kisses'

Yesterday I went to the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx since my membership renewal came during the week. The garden was in beautiful shape and while next weekend and the weekend after will be better for fall foliage there were plenty of flowers to be shot. My little photographic goal was to get a least a few pictures of roses that hadn’t been posted here before. The Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden still had a lot flowers. It was a little disappointing that it was so windy but the wind kept blowing these blasts of rose scent over me. At one point I felt a little light headed and overwhelmed by the heavenly fragrance.


‘Passionate Kisses’ had a really bright color that was almost shimmering as the flowers were being tossed about in the wind. Its registration name is ‘Meizebel' and it was introduced in 1998 by Meilland International.

There was only one of the 2010 AARS rose selections that I could find. It is called ‘Easy Goes It’ and it is a small statue rose with a great orange color. After getting home and looking at this page I realized that there was only one winner selected for 2010. Click the link to find out more about ‘Easy Goes It’.


We had a freeze warning for last night but it only got down to 33 degrees (F). It certainly is coming soon.

It is going to be a busy week.

Robinson's Painted Daisy

Robinson's Painted Daisy
Tanacetum coccineum 'Robinson's Mix'
(TAN-uh-SEE-tum) (kok-SIN-ee-um)
Synonyms: Pyrethrum coccineum

For the first time in a long time we had some Painted Daisies in the cutting garden this year. I had all but given up on their cultivation but they produced well and since the flowers were constantly being cut the flowers kept coming. They have even had a little resurgence this fall. The flower is a real classic and most of my ‘mix’ was pink. The foliage on this plant is an added bonus. Finely cut and kind of ferny and a nice shade of green it looked good all season.

There is a lot of information on Painted Daisies here. The website killerplants.com is a lot of fun and has a wealth of information on plants.

This is a black and white picture of Dahlia ‘Vancouver’. It is nice this time of year as the flower gets a darker red later in the season.

Some Old Fall Shots

Some Old Fall Shots

One thing nice about digital photography is that you can compare shots over several years easily. These were taken in the fall of 2005 and from the other photos on the ‘roll’ we were having a nice fall. There were pictures of a job we installed that year and it is amazing how much it has grown in four years. The flower picture, which is an Aster, was taken on October 3rd and the Japanese Maple leaf was shot on October 20th, 2005.


Hopefully I can get away for a few hours this weekend to take some seasonal photos. It is best to go early in the season because that is when the displays are at their best. Maybe there will some nice fall color but it seems to be coming in drips and drabs this year. I wonder what this fall will look like when I am looking back at it in 2013.

Golden Trumpet

Golden Trumpet
Allamanda cathartica
(al-uh-MAN-duh) (kat-AR-tik-uh)
Synonym: Yellow Allamanda

This was the first time we grew this plant and after a little bit of a slow start it really has been great. Since it is only hardy to USDA Zone 9 we are growing it in a large container. It probably grew about 6 feet tall but the branches fell over for a final height of about 4.5 feet. It has been flowering profusely for several months now. I have seen this flower growing down in Florida where it gets much bigger. It really seems to thrives down there.

Allamanda 'Cherries Jubilee'

This red vine is planted in a container next to the yellow Allamanda. It has also done well. The flower seems a little more refined than the yellow but didn’t look as good with the Scarlet sage and red Verbena that I planted with them. The Peach Verbena did look better with the ‘Cherries Jubliee’.

This bud looked like it was smiling at me.

Central Park Sunflower

Central Park Sunflower
Helianthus annuus
(hee-lee-AN-thus) (AN-yoo-us)

This bold fellow was blooming in Central Park a few weeks ago. The Sunflowers did really well considering that we didn’t really get that much sun around here this summer. They add so much to the summer and fall garden. This flower, which I am assuming was a cultivar, really had nice grayish blue green foliage. The size of the flower was large but not really over powering. It was just about the size.

Wow, was it windy here yesterday. We also got a half inch of rain before the winds arrived. I heard of a peak gust of 46 mph (around 75 kph) but think it was more like in the 30 mph range where I was. There were several roads closed on the way home and numerous power outages that made driving a little difficult. We will be picking sticks for a long while.

This shot was a try at recreating the black and white Sunflower that was posted here in September. In some ways it worked and in other ways it didn’t.


Work has been pretty busy and today we are making the big Chrysanthemum planting (150). The other thing we have been doing is a transplanting rampage. Since a lot of our gardens are starting to mature there are plants that I have resisted moving in the past that have simply gotten too big. They have to move now. Once we started it has gotten to be interesting. Having a lot of space to try some new things and some mature plants to plug some holes has been great. This probably should have been done years ago but I tend to hang on to the way things are in the garden. A bold stroke is sometimes needed and can bring about a nice feeling of change.

Mini Pumpkins

Mini Pumpkins
Cucurbita pepo
(koo-KER-bih-ta) (PEP-oh)

Pansies and the Subway

'Delta Premium Pure Golden Yellow'

West 4th Street Station, Greenwich Village

These pictures were taken Saturday just a few hours apart. It is a bit of a juxtaposition. It sure was an interesting day.

juxtapose
verb [trans.]
place or deal with close together for contrasting effect

Raspberry Fall Foliage

Red Raspberry
Rubus idaeus
(ROO-bus) (eye-DAY-ee-us)

When I saw this foliage last week it bought Ruby Tuesday to mind. This plant is a pest in the garden but doesn’t bother me when growing out in the wild. The wild berries taste good and the plants offer nice fall foliage color. They can also provide some winter interest with the handsome outlines of the branches. The leaves have medicinal properties.

This is another snapshot from my visit to Manhattan the other night.


See more Ruby Tuesday at Work of the Poet.

Gretchen Decorative Mum

Decorative Mum
Chrysanthemum x morifolium 'Gretchen'
(kris-AN-the-mum)

This orange mum is such a nice fall color. It revels in its orangeness. Of all flower colors I find that orange is everybody’s least favorite. Now that is unscientific conclusion but it has held out over my career. I am not sure why as orange, as stated by Color Wheel Pro:

“combines the energy of red and the happiness of yellow. It is associated with joy, sunshine, and the tropics. Orange represents enthusiasm, fascination, happiness, creativity, determination, attraction, success, encouragement, and stimulation.”

And according to Crystal Cure.com

“While red is associated with fiery heat, orange is associated with the benign warmth of the sun. A dynamic color to be sure, orange offers a more thoughtful control than explosive red. Curiosity is a driving characteristic of orange, and with it comes exploration of new things.”

“Put some orange in your life when you want: to spice things up when you feel time is dragging to become more involved in something to increase creativity relief from things becoming too serious”
and this:

“If a change of any kind is need in life, just burn an orange candle for 7 nights.”

Not sure if that last one is true but if it helps somebody than what the heck.

This other picture is a Sheffield Chrysanthemum. It is the true perennial mum in garden around here and one of my favorite plants. They are usually a difficult to find so when the nursery has them I usually get a few.


Last night we went out to dinner in Greenwich Village. As always it was quite a vibrant scene. I got these pictures of the Empire State Building in the fashion district near Herald Square. The only lens I had with me was the 105mm, which was a little long. This is when a nice 24-70mm 2.8 would have been handy.



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Candy Corn Snapdragons

Intermediate Snapdragon
Antirrhinum majus 'Candy Corn'
(an-TEE-ry-num)

This winter there were some Snapdragons posted here and at that time I said that I would like to try and grow some this year. Yesterday there were some at the nursery and there were also a few holes in the container garden and borders so I got 18 of them. The plants were from the ‘Crown’ series and not knowing exactly what that meant I decided to take a chance. That was one of the days that I wished I had a Blackberry so that information could be easily looked up.


After they were planted and I got home to look up the information I found my own post of October 28, 2008 on the ‘Crown Red’ Snapdragons we had seen in Sonoma, California. Since we are growing them now I wanted more information and see that they are considered an intermediate type with a final height in the garden of about 18 inches. That will work out nicely so we got lucky.

More Mums

Pompon Mum
Chrysanthemum x morifolium 'Barbara'
(kris-AN-the-mum) (mor-ee-FOH-lee-um)
Yoder Garden Mum

‘Tis the season of the Chrysanthemum and they are blooming everywhere. This pompon is out at work and it is blooming its heart out right now. The buds were looking a little purple at first but now that the flowers are out they are pink. For me the oranges, reds and bronzes are favorites but this pink one has charmed me. It is actually a nice color to have in the garden this time of year.


What are you going to say about this yellow mum? It was glowing in the broken sunlight yesterday. It was actually planted with another mum in an 18 inch pot. Since the big pot was like $28, wholesale, the picture was all I took home with me. You can see the flowers from the other mum creeping in on the side. It looked good but in a much more muted way.

Anybody else glad it is Friday?

White Chrysanthemum Mildred

Chrysanthemum ‘Mildred’

This was captured at one of the local wholesale nurseries. There were 1,000’s upon 1000’s of Chrysanthemums available. The variation and different series seem endless. This one is a ‘Prophet’ series and falls in the ‘season extender’ for bloom time. It was literally coming into bloom before my eyes. There were a lot of buds and flowers on ‘Mildred’ and they were all in various stages of opening.


We ended up buying seventeen of the 12-inch size and a handful of 8-inch mums. The big ones were funny I have seen smaller rhododendrons! Those were orange, yellow and a couple of reds. They looked nice planted in the garden. Since the perennials were on sale and the pricing was good we also picked up some Sneezeweed, Bee Balm, Coreopsis and Montauk Daisies.