Monday, December 5, 2011
Amaryllis Christmas Flower

Blooming amaryllis flower. This is the biggest Amaryllis I have ever seen. The bulb is amazing, and as the first bud started to work it's way out I could see there were going to be quite a few blossoms. I loved the curves of the blossoms as they opened, and my timing was perfect. A few minutes after this shot was taken the inflorescence was completely open and the five buds were all pointing in different directions.

Sunday, November 27, 2011
Hummingbird Sampling Nectar

Last weekend the Hummingbirds were very busy at the local nurseries. This girl (an Anna's Hummingbird) in particular was spending a lot of time at her favorite flowers. She was not particularly excited to have me there at first. But it was easy to see she really loved these flowers, some kind of South African Lily I believe. So all I had to do was get a step closer each time she came by, and she eventually was pretty comfortable with me.

Sunday, November 6, 2011
November Butterfly

Our winter friends are back! The last couple of weeks have seen quite an increase in the number of Monarch butterflies around Santa Barbara. This one floated by as I was chasing a Hummingbird. The hummingbird turned out to be too shy, but there is always someone around who loves to have their picture taken!

Sunday, May 1, 2011
Poppies and Dasies Playing in the Sprinklers

I didn't intentionally put the water drops on these flowers when I was taking care of a friend's yard. But I did have my camera along for just such an occasion. I loved the way the light caught the huge drops of water. The beautiful curves of the drops complement the small ridges of the poppy petals nicely. And then the daisy decided he wanted to be in the picture and leaned in from the right and said CHEEEEESE. Ok, maybe I spend a little too much time in the garden, but I'm making up for a very busy year that saw my plants too neglected.

Sunday, April 17, 2011
Agapanthus in the Morning Rain

Friends and family who live in a "less temperate" climate make fun of me when I mention the different seasons here, but I do love the change in our seasons. This is a fun early spring shot. The Agapanthus are just starting to bloom in our yard, and on this day an early morning rainstorm had just subsided to let the sunlight through. This combination of weather and sunlight can capture my attention for hours without even leaving my front yard. I actually had to tiptoe through the wet flowers to frame up the second blossom (or inflorescence), out of focus in the background.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Icelandic Poppy

Although it's been a rough winter spring is just around the corner. Of course it's never far away here in California. The winter gives us beautiful sunsets, but now it's time for some amazing spring flower images.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Varigated Miniature Rose

Most of my recent work has been architecture and Santa Barbara city related. Most of those images take a bit logner to plan and execute so the photo of the day has fallen behind a bit lately.so I decided to spend some time last weekend looking through some of my older flower shots looking for interesting unpublished images.

Sunday, December 26, 2010
Miniature Rose

By request, a beautiful rose for a wonderful person!

Sunday, September 27, 2009
Lotus Blossoms

Ahh it's a beautiful flower. Makes me wish I had enough room for a Koi pond. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to keep visiting the ponds at Lotusland and Seaside gardens.

Friday, October 10, 2008
Variegated Cosmos

Today we spent some time in San Luis Obispo. I was looking forward to taking some shots around the Mission San Luis Obispo, but when we got there I was a little disappointed. Half of the tiles were off the roof and it was surrounded by scafolding. But that's ok. We wandered around and enjoyed the beautiful day (it's finally cool!). And we took the opportunity to take in the little details of the mission grounds. This was in the garden in the back.

Friday, September 26, 2008
Passion Flower

I was looking back through some older photos to get the botanic name for this beauty and I noticed something interesting. The first flower from this vine on the site is a lot more purple. I can only assume that is from the shady cool conditions we try to keep in the back yard. I'm sure he was in bright sunlight in the nursery and probably got just the right nutrients to bring out those beautiful colors. But I think I like the variegated look even more! And since I regularly have to untangle this guy from all of the other plants in the back yard I think he is pretty happy with the arrangement too.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Canna in the Afternoon Light

This is one of my friends in the back yard. If you've been around the site for a while you have seen him before. My Mom sent me a bag of about three rhizomes over ten years ago and they (or their descendants) are still going strong. I've seen a lot of other Cannas, but this one is not so common. It's always been my favorite. When the sun is low in the afternoon it has to get through the rest of our jungle, so the lighting gets mottled and really interesting. The only problem is it moves fast and what is a great shot when we are out watering the plants, is gone once I get back out with my camera. Which, of course, leads to the dangerous practice of watering the plants while I'm holding the camera. This, like chasing bees, has worked out well for me so far but may come too an abrupt end one day.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Sun Star Water Drops

Well it's officially fall. Can't believe it, but it's time to start to look for some good bulbs for the garden. This is one of my favorites, the Sun Star. It is a fairly new hybrid and I have not been able to find it as a bulb. But I'm going to keep looking!

Saturday, September 20, 2008
Milkweed Honey

She really looked like she was concentrating on her work. She paid no attention to me. I guess those smaller flowers are kind of tough. You've got to hover or find a place to stand while you work. Don't have time to deal with pesky photographers.

So the milkweed is what the Monarch caterpillars eat which makes the Monarch Butterflies poisonous to most predators. It contains Glycosides, like Foxglove which is used to make Digitalis, a heart medication. So I'm not sure I would want to try that honey. Hopefully it is just the leaves and stem that have the Glycosides in them.

Friday, September 19, 2008
Shadowy Bougainvillea

Most of the time the best lighting is not the direct lighting. At the same time I took this there was quite a bit of sun on the other side of the bush. Those shots were great, but this was my favorite.

It's probably a good thing I can entertain myself in the back yard so easily. When the banks all go out of business I can probably still afford my hobby. 'Course I'm going to need to look at some old Gilligan's Island episodes to design my bike generator to keep the web server on.

Thursday, September 18, 2008
Mallow in the Rain

Another shot from the back yard. This is our Sea Tree Mallow. Zoe pointed these flowers out to me on an early morning vacation walk in monterey. (She was a good dog!) Once we got home from the trip we found this Mallow, a small tree at the time, at a local nursery and brought a little piece of our vacation home.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Epi Blossoms

I love my plants, as evidenced by the huge number of them on the site. This is an example of one in particular that makes us want a bigger back yard. The flower is about eight inches across. We have somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred Epis. They're not all as big as this one, most are still small starts at this point. But if we want them to grow up to be big strong cacti we are going to need a lot more space! Once they grow up they are probably going to need their own site too... "The Epi of the Day"

Saturday, September 13, 2008
Honey Bee on the Horizon

We are always looking for more butterfly food. Our passion flowers are their favorites. After I was already working on framing this shot the bee buzzed in. I love it when that happens. She did not stay around long but it was a really nice addition to the photo!

Sunday, September 7, 2008
Cone Flower Bee

Don't you just hate it when you're working and someone keeps looking over your shoulder. Don't they know you have a lot of pollen and nectar to collect!? Lucky for me, she did not feel that way.

I spent some time hanging out at one of my favorite photo spots. A little nursery near Gelson's on state street. They are always very friendly when I'm wandering around with my camera. They seem to attract a lot of butterfly and bee activity there, I can only assume since they are out in the middle of a parking lot without much other greenery around.

I really like the cone flowers there. This is not my first bee on a purple cone flower shot from there.

Saturday, September 6, 2008
Gulf Fritillary in the Back Yard

Our babies are growing up! A couple of years ago we got a couple of vines, (a Passion Flower and a Mandevilla) to try to coax the beautiful butterflies to stay in our back yard. They almost wiped out the Passion Flower completely the first year. This year the original vines are each about four times the original size, and we have two additional Passion Flowers about the same size. That was finally enough to support the caterpillar crop this year. This is one of four butterflies that we suspect were recently caterpillars in the Passion Flowers and now spend most of the days fluttering and playing in the back yard.

Thursday, September 4, 2008
Cleared for Landing

Sometimes I have to chase them forever to get the shot I want. But this one was very cooperative. I got quite a few nice shots It's always nice to work with good models.

Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Salmon Blossom

If you are not familiar with Epis, think christmas cactus' big brother. REALLY big! This one was only around six inches across. But some of them can get blossoms up to nine inches. One of ours has a single pad that is over two feet long. They are beautiful and we need a bigger back yard because we have collected so many.

Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Red Gold

We often try to get these guys to grow all around our property but with the exception of one pretty hearty yellow one that came up this year from seeds planted last year they seem to have a mind of their own. Even the first poppy that was the inspiration to start this site was a volunteer that popped up in one of our potted plants. This is one that we purchased from the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens. The red color was really striking and I couldn't pass it up. Which is probably not a bad thing considering we were there for a Bonsai show so there were much more expensive and delectate things I could have fallen in love with.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Alice's Hibiscus

It has been a good summer for Hibiscus. So good in fact I could not be sure where I took this. One day I shot some pink Hibiscus at Alice Keck's garden and a day or two later I shot some very similar Hibiscus near Butterfly beach at the same time of day. Good thing I was using my digital camera, I could check the date.