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.



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

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.

Orange Daylily

Orange Daylily
Hemerocallis
(hem-er-oh-KAL-iss)


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Wordless Wednesday

Teasing Georgia Yellow Rose

‘Teasing Georgia’ Yellow Rose
Rosa ‘AUSbaker'
David Austin Shrub Rose

Mikado Semi Cactus Dahlia

Semi Cactus Dahlia
Dahlia 'Mikado'

Having missed getting a shot of ‘Mikado’ the last time I visited Planting Fields I was determined to get one this time. It just came out okay and doesn’t really have the electric color that the original flower does. It seemed like a pretty big flower for a Semi-Cactus type. It was very puffy. The plant was doing well and had several other flowers besides this one. I would grow this Dahlia any time.

Since this is a Ruby Tuesday post and ‘Mikado’ is a little orange I thought this plant would cover the red for ruby.


Redbud Hazel
Disanthus cercidifolius
(dis-AN-thus) (ser-uh-sid-ih-FOH-lee-us)

This was just another cool plant in the five acre Synoptic Garden at Planting Fields. The Disanthus was struggling a bit but putting a good show on its few leaves. The Synoptic Garden is arranged by the plant’s scientific name. There are a few plants out of order but that is to have a nicer flow through the garden. There were some existing plantings in the area and some of those were saved but don’t fit in alphabetically. It is a great garden and always fun to explore. The Abelia collection (a plant I am not crazy about) was remarkable and really showed some of the nice cultivars available. I could see some of the short ones in the garden.

Since the Disanthus was new to me I found it immensely fascinating. From looking it up some sites say it is hardy to Zone 5 (USDA) and we are in Zone 6 (warmer). This shrub grows in part shade and still gets its great fall color.

See more Ruby Tuesday at Work of the Poet.

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.

Spider Miracle Daylily

Daylily
Hemerocallis 'Spider Miracle'
(hem-er-oh-KAL-iss)

‘Spider Miracle’ is an unusual Daylily and it was a joy to find it for sale at the local wholesale nursery this year. Most of the Daylilies available wholesale are kind of plain and there seems to be a limited amount of them. My plants did well except a few of them got tall enough to flop over. The flowers are 8 to 9 inches wide and the scapes get to about 32 inches tall. It is a nice yellow color with a tinge of green around the throat.

Dwarf Shasta Daisy

Dwarf Shasta Daisy
Leucanthemum x superbum 'Snowcap'
(lew-KANTH-ih-mum) (soo-PER-bum)
Synonym: Chrysanthemum x superbum

This is a dwarf Shasta Daisy. It only got about 12 inches tall with the flowers. We planted about fifteen of them in three different gardens under a variety of conditions and it performed pretty well. It is cute as a button when blooming but it didn’t produce a lot of repeat blooms even though it was deadheaded at the proper time. Three of the plants got what looked like a fungus and were cut down completely. When the foliage reemerged it was fine. I can’t really recommend a perennial until it returns a few years but this one certainly has promise if it can make it through the winter especially for Shasta Daisy lovers you don’t like to stake or pinch their plants.

This next flower is one of my favorites and there was already a post on it this year.

Gloriosa Daisy
Rudbeckia hirta 'Autumn Colors'
(rud-BEK-ee-a)


The color combination is dramatic and each flower seems a little different. It also seems that the plants vary pretty wildly as to how much orange, yellow and red they have. It bloomed its heart out this year. Every time I looked at it seemed to have layers in both color and dimensions. It has faded and gotten a little beat up now but it was worth having it. Right now I am toying with the idea of cutting it back completely.