Winter's Beauty

This month's Gardening Gone Wild Picture This contest is to showcase winter's beauty. I would have loved to enter this contest with a photo that shows some beautiful snowy or frosty scene in my garden, but that's just not gonna happen here I think (although I certainly got my share of freezing weather this month, no such luck with the snow). I had almost resigned myself to not entering when I realized that this amaryllis says winter's beauty for U.S. southerners as much as snow or ice does for northerners. So this is my entry.

A little bit about this amaryllis - it was supposed to be of the variety Apple Blossom. But this strong orange color tells me I got duped by the big box again! Don't get me wrong though, I think this variety is quite beautiful. Anyone know which one it is?

This post was written by Jean McWeeney for my blog Dig, Grow, Compost, Blog. Copyright 2009. Please contact me for permission to copy, reproduce, scrape, etc.

Picture This End of the Line

I like participating in Gardening Gone Wild's Picture This photo contests because they're always challenging and I always learn something from the winners, contestants, and judges. This month's subject is "The End of the Line", apropo for the season I think. It can be taken metaphorically, literally, or both.

I chose to take a stab at both with my photo. This is a photo from very early March a few years ago. It's out in the country somewhat close to Sisters Bulb Farm, a bulb farm no longer in business but one that used to supply old fashioned narcissus to other companies. My imagination flows with thoughts about this old barn and its line of daffodils up to the door. Was there a house nearby? Did the owners get their bulbs from Sisters or were they related to the owners? Does that white line of daffodils indicate an old drive? Where are the owners or their descendants now? I do know that the barn has since been torn down. Do the bulbs still come back or was the destruction of the barn the end of the line for them as well? I hope to answer that question next March; that is, if I can still find this place.

Picture This - Abundant Harvest

Time is just slip, slip, slippin' away from me. I have so many blogs to visit, so many photos to get off my camera and into the computer, and so many posts to write. And all of a sudden I realized that today is the last day to enter this month's Gardening Gone Wild "Picture This" contest. The theme of this month's contest is "Abundant Harvest". When I first read that I thought "oh boy, have I got a slew of those photos". No, not from my incredibly prolific garden, ha! But from many of the farmers' markets I visit. When I travel, I love to visit a local farmers' market. It's a great place to see people and get to know a locale.

But my all time favorite farmers' market is the one we have right here in town. You see, I'm heavily involved in it, writing the weekly newsletter and occasional press releases, being on the executive board, and being all-around cheerleader. I believe this to be true - by working hard we volunteers have made a difference in our community and for our farmers.

So I'd like to introduce you to the fact that northern Louisiana has many beautiful peaches and peach orchards. In particular, these luscious peaches at the top of the post that came from the Dye's farm near Mer Rouge. Their white peaches are divine. During the height of the peach season we have three orchards selling their abundance in our little market! Needless to say, I've learned how to freeze peaches. :-)

Here's a few more shots I've taken over the last year and a half of the abundance at our market.

















I apologize if this was slow to load for you because of the number of photos. But I tell ya', I had a WHOLE lot more I could have posted!

Fall Light in the Garden

Photographing the garden in the fall is very different from summer. In the summer I must get out there early before Mr. Sun shines his death rays. But now the sun is very slanted and I face new challenges, for this beginner photographer anyway. Still, it allows for new perspectives and fall light has always been my summer savior.



Moonflower starts to stay open longer as the mornings cool down.



Grasses start to show off now. This muhly (Pink or Gulf; I'm not sure which as they were gifts) is not at its peak yet but starting to get there.



Inland Sea Oats seedheads, which were cut off right after this photo was taken to prevent too much self-seeding.



'Fireworks' (Pennisetum setaceum rubrum) is surviving the neighbor cat's constant chewing. Maybe next year I can get it to really shine. But I just gotta figure out the cat thing.



The slanting light is challenging my photographs of the woodland garden.



Speaking of challenges, can you find the two Cloudless Sulphur butterflies amongst the leaves? I'm not an expert butterfly ID'er but I think that's what these are. The butterflies are there, believe me.



The Gulf Fritillarys are all over. The challenge with photographing all butterflies, besides the fact that they don't stand still, is that they're mostly out in the bright sunshine of the afternoon.



I think I prefer the underside of the Gulf Fritillarys most. This one's on 'Victoria Blue' Salvia. I hope to capture more butterflies in the near future, if they'll only hang around a while for my camera. Wish me luck!

Picture This - Grasses Gone Wild

I've been pondering about the latest Picture This photo contest that Gardening Gone Wild is running. The challenge this month is to capture the beauty of grasses. My pondering is because at this point in time my ornamental grasses are only just now putting some seedheads on. A month from now they'll look great. But not so much now. So I guess I could go back and look at some photos from last year or so. Which is what I did. But lo and behold I became captivated not by my ornamental grasses, but by some beautiful (to me) grasses out in the wild. So I'm not sure if I can even enter the picture above since it's not in my garden. If it's not "legal", that's okay. I'd like to show you some grasses anyway.

These photos were taken last December in Davis Mountains State Park in far southwest Texas. I blogged about it back then here and here. I'm not sure what variety of grasses all of these are but in that area the most common grasses are species of grama (Bouteloua spp.), muhly (Muhlenbergia spp.), and bluestem (Bothriochloa spp.). Most likely the top photo is of muhly grasses (corrections always welcomed!).



This is most likely muhly as well.



My impression is that all of the plants in this region co-exist in some kind of neat partnership. These grasses look like bluestem.

Many different kinds of grasses exist side by side.



I just can't get enough of how the grasses contribute to that feeling of movement, peace and serenity.



You can see many more lovely photos of grasses in the Comments section of the GGW Picture This post here. I can't wait to see them myself!

"Picture This" Photo Contest

The folks at Gardening Gone Wild have their monthly photo contest going. This time the theme is "Down on Your Knees", a great theme in order to challenge us to go at our garden photography from a different angle. David Perry is the judge this time and if you've never seen his blog, you really must. It's inspiring and many times educational.

I almost didn't enter this contest after I looked at a few of the entries. Besides some great garden blogger entries, there's now photography blogger entries, so my entry is going to pale in comparison. But I thought it worth putting this photo up anyway because I'd love to know the variety of mushroom (seems I always have to label things). Anyone know?

We've had some rain recently and these little beauties are starting to pop up here and there. To get this shot I borrowed a tip I learned from Saxon Holt - lay out a yoga mat and lie down. I risked chiggers and even more mosquito bites than I already have but I found it was quite fun hanging out at that level!

Native Plants at Briarwood

The folks at Gardening Gone Wild have instituted a new monthly feature - Picture This, a photography contest. This month the contest is focusing on native plants in the garden. I don't normally enter contests, certainly not photography ones feeling out of my element there, but since I was going to blog about my trip to a local native plant garden anyway, might as well enter a photo or two! Besides, the winner receives some agastache plants from High Country Gardens and I've been wanting some of those. :-)

The first photo above is of a "stinkbush", Illicium floridanum. Stinkbush is what it's commonly called around here although other names are starbush, anise-stinkbush, purple anise, and Florida anise. Its fragrance attracts carrion flies among other insects which is why it has that common name. I personally didn't think it smelled that bad but some folks can't stand it.



I should tell you a little bit about this garden called Briarwood. It has a really neat history. The garden was started by Caroline Dormon, said to be the first female employed in the forestry industry. She had a log cabin in a beautiful wooded part of Louisiana, not too far from where we live. Caroline had a passion for native plants and went all over Louisiana and the South collecting plants and rearing them in her wooded setting. The garden covers many acres of interesting native trees, shrubs, native wildflowers, and more formal gardens including a bog garden. Near the bog garden are these Cinnamon Ferns, Osmunda cinnamomea. The caretaker said that they're very weedy there. The bog garden is said to have one of the best collections of Louisiana irises anywhere. Below is one of many in bloom.



There were so many gorgeous plants and the caretaker, who is an elderly gentleman who was a personal friend of Caroline, rattled off their names constantly. Since I have this crazy need to categorize things, it was driving me bonkers that I couldn't catch all the names of these plants! So I apologize for not knowing all the botanical names. Below you'll see a flower from one of the many deciduous azaleas that were blooming.



The size of those azaleas really surprised me. They were huge! And the fragrance was intoxicating. Very similar to stargazer lilies in my opinion. Below you can hopefully get a reference point for how large the plants are.



Here's a variety of mountain laurel.



And these lilies were blooming all over. I'll try to get the name of these. I know someone out there knows it. UPDATE: A friend of mine who is taking the Master Gardener class with me lent me all her books by Caroline Dormon. They are wonderful and I have found out the name of the lily. It's Zephyranthes atamasco, also called the wild Easter lily. Zephyranthes says to me it's a rain lily. I've tried growing some rain lilies here and although they're green, they don't flower. Perhaps I need to get these!



Caroline Dormon died in 1971 and created a trust to preserve her garden. Here's a peek at her log cabin, almost hidden by all the native shrubs.



I'll be back to Briarwood. I really want to incorporate native plants in my landscape but have great difficulty finding them here. Briarwood has the occasional plant sale so I hope to score some natives this year.

A New Perspective

Well, it was quite a revelation to me to see what a professional photographer could do with my garden. It looks completely different. I didn't really plan on this. My brother, Brian McWeeney, who makes a living as a photographer, was visiting us from Texas a week or so ago. You can't keep a photographer from taking photos so I was happy he took his camera out to my backyard. Check it out.



Texas Bluebonnet leaves.



Texas Bluebonnet.



Swiss chard.



Iris and raindrop.



Saucers.



Autumn Joy Sedum and raindrops.