Zooming (and Macro) – December 2023

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There was not as much time for photography this past month; I am combining macro (getting close) and zoomed (optical magnification) images in this post.

The macro images go first. The yellow cosmos were part of a small bouquet I cut and put in mini-vase for the middle of my parents’ breakfast table. They enjoyed the enlarged view that I showed them just after I photographed them. The leaves are probably the last new ones of the season on a rose bush that has been blooming next to their garage for over 30 years!

The leaves on a millet plant (came up under the bird feeder!) are interesting as they begin their end-of-season decline.

The zoomed images for December included some birds and plants at Josey Ranch, fall foliage, and zoomed images of glass orbs in yard art…the last flowers in the garden.

In the coming months – the stainless steel iris will be the highlight of the garden!

In the coming months – the stainless steel iris will be the highlight of the garden!

2023 in a Carrollton Yard

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My parents’ yard in Carrollton is almost overflowing with plants. They have accumulated over the years. Many of them are from seeds/cuttings/gifts from extended family…my paternal grandmother’s sisters (pink maiden sage), my father’s cousin (a 30+ year old rose bush), my maternal grandparents gardens (cannas), sunflowers that started from a granddaughter’s kindergarten ‘flower in a cup’ project more than 20 years ago, and orange spider lilies that came up in one of my sisters yards when she bought her house more than 30 years ago. One of my sisters does most of the maintenance these days…to the joy of my parents. My dad helps with mowing the yard (this month is more ‘mowing the leaves’ rather than grass)!

The year started out very cold with heavy frost on the first mornings of the year.

The quince blooms early…a splash of color near the fence. The bird feeder attracts birds that can easily be viewed from the garden room. Bulbs and dandelions mark the warming temperatures of spring. The cosmos and red yucca bloom all through the season. The 2023 summer was challenging with a longer than usual period of very hot days with no rain. Some plants survived with the water from sprinklers, but others died back (hopefully will return next spring). The naked lady lilies put up their fonds early then bloom in midsummer. The spider lilies are late bloomers too. The cosmos lasted through most of November. And now in December – the seedpods of red yucca and chives provide texture as the winter begins. We are beginning to see some of the garden ornaments that were buried in foliage previously!

My parents have lived in their house for 33 years and the garden area of the yard has evolved over time. The rose bush purchased for my Grandmother’s 80th birthday in 1992 still blooms in the spring and fall!

Carrollton Yard – November 2023

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At the beginning of the month – the yard in Carrollton, Texas was still needing to be mowed almost weekly and the leaves were mostly green on the trees. The metal iris I bought last spring was still surrounded my growing vegetation – not the only focal point of the garden as it will be in the winter.

There are still some things blooming.

The pecan tree is shedding groups of leaves that are still green onto the pavers.

I cut the three millet seed heads that grew under the bird feeder. I’ll put them in the sunniest corner of my yard in Missouri. Maybe the seeds will come up next spring, grow as ornamentals, round the corners of the yard that I mow, and feed birds by the fall.

Carrollton is renovating the infrastructure in my parents’ neighborhood. The alley already has flags to mark where the gas line is located. The alley will be removed/replaced and plantings about 8 inches from the existing concrete will be destroyed.

That 8 inches includes some tiger lily and iris bulbs, sunflowers that have come back year after year from my niece’s kindergarten sunflower-in-a-cup planted there over 20 years ago, native hibiscus, and lots of chives. My sister cut the sunflowers and put the stalks further back in the bed (hoping the seeds will continue to mature there), dug up the lily and iris bulbs to plant elsewhere, and dug up/moved the native hibiscus plants.

In the front yard, there were mums planted in open spaces in ground cover…the red oak in that area is beginning to shed a few leaves.

Across the sidewalk, the red yucca has mature seed pods full of black seeds…but is still blooming as well.

Overall – a yard beginning a slow slide to fall.

Carrollton Yard – August 2023

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Weeks of 100+ degree temperatures in Carrollton, TX were hard on the yard/garden. Frequent watering helped. Still - the hydrangea that is usually very lush green and blooming is drying out – hopefully it will come back from the roots next year.

There is still a lot of green in the garden areas of the yard. Crape Myrtles seem to thrive in the high heat if they get enough water.

The naked lady lilies are almost done for the season. My favorite picture of the morning was one of the last flowers – full of water droplets from the sprinklers.

There is a lot of seed production too. The red yuccas look as they always do but other plants seem to have more than the usual seeds…maybe a good strategy to survive to grow another year.

There was a large spider in the flower bed near the front door – a female Argiope aurantia (yellow garden spider). The first time I saw it, all was quiet on the web.

The next day, the spider was feeding on something! There were a few droplets of water from the sprinklers too. The web seemed to be very sturdy – and built in a good place.

Overall, attention to watering (sprinkler system and supplement in key areas) has sustained the yard. Many in the neighborhood look thoroughly dry…and dying. If this is what the summers will be like in the area from now on – then landscaping will need to change significantly.

Carrollton Yard – July 2023

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The temperatures were over 100 every day I was in Carrollton, TX in July; I spent most of my time in places with air conditioning. It was in the 80s when I ventured out not that long after sunrise…getting a bit of yard photography done before it got too hot. The naked lady lilies (pink) were the most spectacular flowers of July and my mother had brought some of them indoors to enjoy. There were plenty left amongst the greenery from cosmos (orange)…Crape Myrtle and Queen Anne’s Lace as back drop. The elderly mulberry trees are still healthy enough to sprout new leaves along their trunks. The toy truck, rooster, copper fountain, tractor windmill, and glass sphere are nestled among the plants. The red yucca is thriving. Many plants are growing seeds/pods already.

In the distance – the Carrollton water tower and the sun just above the horizon could be seen through the trees.

There is a sprinkler system that runs twice a week in the early morning….but my sister and father are supplementing that watering for the newer plants. There hasn’t been rain recently and the high temperatures are taking a toll. The hydrangea has not produced flowers at all this year and looks forlorn even with a lot of watering.

Carrollton Yard – June 2023

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June is the ‘getting hot’ month in Carrollton, Texas…leading into more frequent 100-degree-plus days in the following months. It is already obvious which yards in the neighborhood are getting watered. My parents have a sprinkler system that my sister keeps tuned to maximize the watering where it is needed most. In the backyard the Queen Anne’s Lace, cosmos, hibiscus, and day lilies are lush – flowers and lots of green. In the front yard there are dusty miller plants in bloom, the last of the daisies, and the red yuccas with blooms and lots of green seed pods. The red oak planted there is finally getting a lot of light and growing well since the ancient mulberry has been cut down.

There is still grass to mow and weed eating/edging – a continuing chore – even though the years of gardening have reduced the area maintained in that way. Pulling ‘trash trees’ that emerge in the flowerbeds requires more finesse by the person doing the work (distinguishing what needs to be pulled from the plants that should be in the flower beds) and is always on the ‘to do’ list for the yard!

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Wishing everyone an enjoyable 4th of July…Independence Day in the US…a day for fireworks, parades, and watermelon!

Carrollton Yard – May 2023

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My parent’s yard was transitioning from spring to summer when I was there in late May. My sister had taken away the naked lady lily leaves that had turned brown; the bulbs have the stored energy for their bloom later in the summer. I put the stainless-steel iris I bought at the Springfield Artsfest in the hydrangea plot. It looked like it belonged there and will provide some color visible from the garden room during the winter.

The Queen Anne’s Lace is beginning to boom…and the cosmos. In the front yard the red yucca is the most colorful. The daisies are dispersing their seeds. The ferns are lush and there are still fiddleheads unfurling.

The lamb’s ear is blooming. When I got home, the ones in my yard were too!

Now I am beginning to think about whether I want to propagate some of these plants in my yard. My challenge right now is a lack of gardening space and the need to clear out plants that didn’t make it through the winter in some of the beds. On the plus side…that clearing could leave some places that I could plant some Carrollton transplants.

Zooming – November 2022

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18 images in the slide show for November – less skewed toward botanical subjects than recent months. Outings to Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge, Springfield Conservation Nature Center and Josey Ranch Lake increased my opportunity to photograph wildlife. It was good to see winter and migrating birds…more of those in coming months (probably).

Enjoy the November slide show!

Cosmos and chives

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At my home in Missouri, we had some overnight frosts. That was not the case in Carrollton, Texas where I spent the last week of October. The cosmos flowers were still blooming!

There were still buds and insects too!

Before I left to come home, I decided to collect seeds from the chives to plant around the edges of some flower beds in my Missouri home next spring.

The plants had formed, and the capsules had popped open. The rain had knocked the seed heads over and into the still-green leaves and steppingstones.

The plants had formed, and the capsules had popped open. The rain had knocked the seed heads over and into the still-green leaves and steppingstones.

I picked up the heads carefully and used scissors to cut the stem…collected a bin full of them. They were still wet from the rain, so I opted to cut more of the stem part of the head away and spread the seeds/capsules on a paper towel to dry. I brought them home in a recycled envelope. They are now emptied into a box in my office – keeping dry – ready for planted after the last frost next spring!

Carrollton Yard (1) – September 2022

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The elderly mulberry with a thermometer is close to the garden room. The days I was in Carrollton TX in September started in the 80s and got up to the 90s every day! We did everything we needed to do outdoors before it got above 90! The sprinklers are keeping up although some plants have not recovered from the many days of 100+ temperatures with almost no rain in the first months of summer.

The chives are blooming with seeds beginning to form. By next month, the seeds should be visible. Crepe myrtle and hibiscus and cosmos weathered the heat…got enough water to make it to September and still bloom.

The surprise of September (for me) were orange spider lilies. Evidently, they have been there for years, but I just wasn’t visiting at the time they were blooming. They look great in the garden and can be cut for dramatic and long-lasting bouquets.

I captured a tiny landscape found in the garden: wandering jew, a yellow mulberry leaf…framed by a hose.

Lizards like the garden. I saw one in a sunny patch of grass…then on the trunk of the sweet gum. His coloring helps him blend into the tree bark better than the grass!

More tomorrow on other plants of the September Garden….

Zooming – July 2022

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Lots of photography locations in July. In Missouri: our new yard, the Springfield Nature Center, the Springfield Botanical Garden. In Texas, my parents’ yard in Carrollton. In Maryland, Brookside Gardens. There were still plenty of summer flowers to photograph…although fewer than previous years. The insects and birds are not as numerous either. So – enjoy the slide show for the best garden/nature views where I was in July 2022!

The very hot temperatures in Missouri and Texas are taking a toll, but areas that are watered are surviving. Hopefully we will start getting some rain showers soon.

Carrollton Yard – July 2022 (1)

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It takes regular watering to keep my parents’ Carrollton yard from drying when the coolest it gets is the low 80s…the high being over 100 degrees…heat advisories almost every day. Many flowers have bloomed and then dried very quickly.

The crepe myrtles are blooming almost normally.

The cosmos are not as lush as they were last summer – fewer blooms and they seem in a hurry to make seeds.

The same is true for some other flowers.

There are two tiger lily plants with multiple flowers on each stalk blooming in the center of a large bed. My sister wades into the foliage to cut some to bring inside….making a short bouquet for the table.

I went outside multiple times first thing in the morning to take pictures with my phone and my bridge camera. The flowers always draw the eye first but the other plants in the yard are often more interesting on closer observation.  Stay tuned for subsequent posts…different perspectives on the same yard.

My Favorite Photographs of 2021

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It was a challenge to pick one picture from each month of 2021 to feature in this post….but a worthwhile exercise. I did not use consistent criteria for my choices, so these images are special for a variety of reasons.

January for witnessing interesting bird behavior – A bluebird on our deck railing looking up at our bird feeder full of other members of the flock…waiting a turn!

February for learning to make high key images – A high key image of a lily….the flower purchased at the grocery store. I had just watched a video about high key photography and was thrilled to have some easy successes.

March for beauty old and new – The crocus were out at Brookside Gardens but I found the remnants of last seasons flowers more interesting.

April for a bird trusting that I wasn’t a threat– A bird looking rather assertive. I had paused its search for food in the leaves to make sure I wasn’t a threat; evidently I wasn’t because it went back to its search a few seconds later.

May for memorializing a bird – A juvenile little blue heron in the cattail leaves at Josey Ranch in Carrollton TX. It had a broken wing so I think of this image as a monument to its short life.

June for something that only happens every 17 years – The periodic cicadas seemed to be thick everywhere – even our yard. This one was under our red maple.

July for interconnection in nature– Back in Texas…am insect on a cosmos flower on a cool morning.

August for the fragile beauty of a new butterfly – A monarch butterfly seconds after it emerged from its chrysalis is our front flower bed.

September for capturing a small thing, seeing it better than I could with my eyes – Some birds nest fungus in the mulch at Howard County Conservancy. I was thrilled that I had my gear (phone, clip on macro, clicker) even though I hadn’t planned to do any macro photography!

October for being in a river – More macro photography – this time the wing of an insect on a rock just above the water line….photographed on a volunteer gig before the students arrive.

November for the colors of the flower – Another view of a cosmos flower. I like it when the light is such that a black background is possible.

December the new orb sculpture at Brookside – A surprise (for me) at Brookside – I hadn’t seen this sculpture before…and I also enjoyed the holiday lights (missed them last year).

Last Images from Texas

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I was checking my SD cards in all my cameras and discovered some ‘new’ images from my last days in Texas during November.

There were still roses blooming on the oldest rosebush at my parents (about 30 years old)..

The cosmos were attracting butterflies. There might have been monarchs migrating through since some seemed larger than others.

The place still had a look of summer.

Over at Josey Ranch Lake….there was a different story. More winter migrants had arrived.

Scaups

American Wigeon

Pied-bill Grebe

There were also more American Coots that before…and they were not happy to have so many of their kind around…squabbles were happening frequently with one or both birds running across the surface of the water.

A Great Egret was hunting in the shallows and

A Great Blue Heron had waded into deeper water for a bath.

Overall….the images were a way to savor the good experience of my weeks in Texas last month.

Zooming – November 2021

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Three locations for my zoomed image collection this month: Maryland (home), Texas (Carrollton), Missouri (Springfield). Enjoy the slideshow of the whole group then look below for thumbnails by location!

Maryland

Texas

Missouri

Texas Macro

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I enjoyed two sessions of macro photography with my phone and clip on lens in the Carrollton, Texas. Getting very close to the vegetation with a magnifying lens provides a different perspective of the plants. Can you find the red yucca pod, the cosmos flowers, the rabbits ear leaf, the underside of a fern, hydrangea leaf, black seeds of the chives, cone flower seed pod and French flower? There is an occasional insect. Each image can be enlarged by clicking on it to pop up a larger version.

This is probably the last hurrah for summer type macro images. The subjects will shift to leaf color transitions and snowflakes …or indoors with store bought flowers for the holidays or holiday decorations.

A Carrollton, Texas Yard

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There is still looks a lot of green in Carrollton, Texas….maybe looking better than summer since it is not so hot that everything looks parched. The cosmos are at their tallest…a mini-jungle of green and orange – still blooming and attracting insects.

The vegetation in the garden areas is intermixed with leaves that have fallen and are beginning to decay; the leaves are not deep enough to smother the plants that are still growing. The old toys and watering cans are almost covered with summer growth. An old bird house is rotting among the thick growth of the garden.

How long with the summer garden linger this year? There have been some cooler days…but not a frost….yet. Many will have a sudden demise at the first hard freeze.

Texas Butterflies

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After I shared my video of the Monarch butterfly emerging with my sisters, we started talking about the butterflies they are seeing in Texas. They are not seeing as many as they remember being around in the past….and in recent years the only times they have noticed Monarchs is in the fall during migration. One sister noticed 2 butterflies drawn to her cosmos…more than she had noticed before.  The plants are blooming profusely.

There was a Monarch that moved all around the garden. The picture shows that it is a female. The yard has plenty of nectar  for the butterfly but no milkweed for eggs/caterpillars. This time of year, a lot of plants go dormant in that part of Texas unless they are watered and milkweed usually grows in places that aren’t watered. Is this butterfly already on its way further south?

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She sent pictures of another butter asking for an ID. It’s obviously one of the swallowtails. The pictures of the upper side show clearly that it is a male pipevine swallowtail. Again – enjoying the nectar in the yard…but there are no host plants for caterpillars.

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In the not so distant past – there would have been a lot more butterflies drawn to the nectar in her garden. Butterflies – like a lot of other insects – are declining rapidly. There are a lot of reasons…mostly derived from human activity. Hopefully our actions can begin to reverse the trend…starting now. Nectar plants are prevalent in many gardens although skewing more toward native species rather than exotics would be an improvement. Beyond that, I am going to focus on host plants and not keeping my garden so tidy that I remove chrysalises/cocoons!

Texas Morning

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I kept checking the sky at sunrise all during the time I was in Texas. The sky was clear for most days and the sunrise color washed out. Then there was a day of light clouds that reflected the color. I noted that the palm that had looked ruined after last winters deep cold has recovered.

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My parents’ backyard has changed since one of the large mulberry trees was cut. The cosmos flowers are large and blooming profusely.

The naked lady lilies are not as numerous and will probably shift to the shadier parts of the garden. They were the thickest around the old tree but now the area is too sunny for them.

There are still mulberries in the yard. They are well trimmed and will probably last a few more years. The one closest to the house has leaves sprouting from the trunk! I sat in a comfortable patio chair and took some zoomed pictures. There are even some high key pictures in the mix.

I turned a bit and noticed that the moon was still up. I balanced my camera on my knee. That was steady enough to get even the highly zoomed image!

The pecan tree that used to be between 2 mulberry trees is growing rapidly now that one is gone. The tree trimmers had done a good job in taking off lower branches and the tree will quickly become the dominate tree in the garden. It might get above the remaining mulberry this year!

It was a great morning to be outdoors photographing the garden…until I noticed a mosquito buzzing around me. A sign that it was time to go indoors…

Carrollton Yard – July 2021

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The back yard in Carrollton, Texas is a sunnier space that when I was here in May (a big tree had to be cut down). And it is summer. There are some cannas that are some of the tallest I’ve seen.

The hydrangeas are waning…the Queen Anne’s Lace is not as abundant as earlier…there are some round yellow-orange blobs of fungus in the shredded wood left from the big tree…they are almost the same color as the cosmos that are blooming in the newly sunny patch…a few Naked Lady Lilies and other shade loving plants are under the pecan tree which is growing rapidly now that the old mulberry is not overhead.

There are metal sculptures that I always notice among the plants – always there but looking different because of the changes of the plants over the season.

In the front yard, the ferns have spores forming on the underside of the fronds and there is only one daisy left.

The red yucca has seed pods developing among its flowers.

In a patch of dirt where some plant has died back, I found an large,empty snail shell…even though haven’t seen a snail in the yard before!

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Overall – the garden in Carrollton has changed quite a lot since May. Having the big tree gone has changed things more than the usual cycle…this next year will be one of transition for the corner of the yard that was very shady and is now full of sun.