Petal Photos
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Epi Blossom
One of my beautiful Epiphyllum blossoms blooming right now. These are some of my favorite plants. Imagine a Christmas cactus, with 3 foot long pads and blossoms literally 9" across.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Ladybug Daisy
Recently I found some aphids on the blossoms of one of my cacti. Rather than spray or use soap we went down to the hardware store and got a little box of lady bugs. Most of the nurseries or home and garden stores keep them in little refrigerators, kind of dormant just waiting for an assignment. Mine had two jobs... get the bugs, and look pretty for the camera while doing it.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Ranunculus Dew Drops
Last night we we were wandering around the plant section of the local home improvement store and we found ourselves in the spring Annuals section. I'm a sucker for varigated flowers, especially red and yellow, and I really love Ranunculus. This one is a bit more subtle than most varigated flowers. From a distance the petals look orange, But the veins are more orange-red and the petals are yellow. Which makes for an amazing effect where they seem to change color depending upon the angle you look at them. And with so many petals the effect is even more pronounced. This morning my wife found him a nice spot in the back yard and gave him some water, then it was time for his photo shoot!
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Cactus Blossom
A beautiful cactus blossom from our travels. This plant was amazing and the blossoms were several inches across.
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, 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.
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.
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.
Saturday, May 24, 2008
Evening Epi
It's a great time of year, time for our Epis to really start blooming. This one lasts a little longer than one evening so I'm pretty sure it is a hybrid of some sort. In the wild they only bloom for a single night. The blossom is about nine inches at the widest. The cup of petals in the middle is about four across. It is quite an amazing sight and makes for some nice night-time photography.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Mexican Tulip poppy
This is a new friend that followed us home from
a nice little nursury in Montecito. Nursuries
are a dangerous place really, we only have a small
backyard and it is getting pretty full.
Last week a similar thing happend with a Passion Flower
vine and a dwarf Fingered Citron tree. Both of which
will be featured on the Photo of the Day in the near future.
Just as soon as their blossoms get a little further along.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Sun Star Bloom
Well it's that time of year the Sun Stars are in bloom!
This is a beautiful Orange hybrid related to a Star-of-Bethlehem.
This particular flower was my first one. It took a rest last year, but
it is back strong.
If you landed here looking for care and feeding of your new plant
take a look at the Sun Star page. And my
earlier shot from the first time this one bloomed.
Most importantly, it's a perennial bulb, so No!... you did not kill it! It dies back every year
down to the bulb.
And pretty fast after it's done blooming!
If you're looking for one, they are available as live plants now. Or you can get bulbs in the fall.
I've had a few requests for sources of bulbs so I'll try to get some links online soon.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Tulip Feather
More plants followed us home from the grocery store the other day. One of them was this beautiful Tulip. The bellows was still out from the recent Ladybug fest so this shot was inevitable really.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Break time for the farmworker
Another lady bug fresh from work on our epi farm. They are doing a great job,
the aphids are virtually gone! So she (he?) deserves a break. This is a rose
from our first anniversary. Lasted well didn't it? Well, it helps to buy the
bush rather than the cut flowers. :-D
Unlike the Ladybug from yesterday
I shot this one with a macro lens attachment and no bellows. This was the closest I could get
as compared to yesterday when I was actually at the maximum focal distance of the bellows.
This way I can get a little bit of the beautiful surroundings.
Oh, and as you can probably tell it's dark outside. I was using
a hand-held light to get these shots. I'ts best to release the lady bugs
in the evening unless you just want them to fly away.
It was interesting though, they were much warmer and therefore much more active tonight.
It finally got to the point where I had to go inside because I was covered in ladybugs.
Fortunately these don't bite unlike the apparently carnivorous ladybugs in the
farm country where my parents live. When the farmers harvest the fields the ladybugs
run... and then they descend upon my parents' house in a swarm.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Lady in the Epi
The ladybugs seem to really love our epis.
Probably because when they start to bloom (the epis, not the bugs :-D) there's a lot of nectar
around the buds. The nectar seems to attract aphids. This time
we tried to get the jump on them. We bought a small bag of
ladybugs from the hardware store. Of course I was not going to let
them go until the camera was ready!
I used a bellows to get close enough for this shot. The whole background of the shot
is the same flower that the ladybug is sitting on.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Ranunculus Close Up
It may not seem like it, but I have finally
got off the sofa to start to take some pictures
again. This was during a nice walk through a local
nursery the other day.
I appreciate all your kind notes and thoughts over the last
few weeks. Zoe's still a great inspiration. I think
of her often when we are out and see something beautiful like this,
or the amazing flowering pear trees that are covered in white blossoms right now.
The kind of things that she would have got me out of the
house to take pictures of. Now it's all up to Tweetums
to get us out of the house once in a while! I wonder
if he would like to go out for a walk? ...hmmm
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Orange Gerbera Closeup
More beauty courtesy the Santa Barbara Farmers' Market.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Poppy Seed Pod
No, it's not upside down! Well, the photo's not anyway, the flower is.
This is the same flower from the Photo of
the Day on the 20th. By the looks of things there will be
poppies all over the place in our back yard next year.
I like the "cross section" look of the flower. And the ruffled
edge of the petals too.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Kalanchoe & Star
I was tinkering with using the Kalanchoe as a nice backdrop to get some shots of the green tipped Sun Star blossoms. In the end I was happiest with the shots that had them both in the mix. I really like the Kalanchoe in this shot because one of the flowers in the upper right has five petals. There are hundreds of blossoms and only two of them have five petals. The rest all have four.
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Rose Shadows
I particularly like the shadows of the stamen on the petal. The sun was cooperating very nicely on this one!
Friday, September 22, 2006
Rebel Cyclamen
A few months ago we put some new plants in
near our front door. Among them were a few white Cyclamen
and one purple one. The Purple one was right next to this
white plant but it did not seem to do
so well. There is not much left of it above ground
But it has managed to make it's presence known. (they are tubers,
so hopefully it is still down there)
These plants are interesting and beautiful anyway. The flower is
actually pointing down and the petals turn around and point up. (called
"reflexed petals") But this little addition has made this one of
the more interesting plants in the front yard at the moment!
Thursday, August 31, 2006
Daisy Study
I really like this shot because, not only can
you make out the individual flowers in the center
of the daisy, but you can see the different stages
of their development. In the center they have not
opened yet, but has you move out you can see the stages
of the flowers' development.
This is not the first time I have enjoyed
the structure of a daisy on the photo of the day.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Neighborly Rose
One of our neighbor's beautiful roses was peeking over the fence. Actually several of them are. We only have small yards here, in fact our neighbor's yard is actually a patio. But he makes good use of it. It is completely covered with roses in giant containers. This one is about 6 feet tall.
Sunday, June 11, 2006
Sharp Pear Blossom
There are pads on this cactus that are completely covered around the edge with blossoms. I have tried to get some nice shots that show the amazing quantity, but the beauty of the individual blossoms and buds keeps drawing me in closer.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Glowing Rose
I have been blessed with a good combination of skills that allow me to work from home most of the time. But, last week I was filling in for a friend who was on vacation. It is a difficult thing to get in the habit of going to an office when you don't normally do that, but there are rewards. This is an amazing climbing rose on the side of the building where I was working.
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