Month: April 2019

So Quickly Gone: Spring Blossom

flower photography

I nearly wrote ‘Cherry Blossom’ in the title rather than ‘Spring Blossom’, but then I realised that I’m starting the post with flowers that aren’t cherry blossom. (Cherry tree flowers have a little slit at the tip of each petal, as you can see in the photograph below.)

What the blossom actually is, is something I can only make a guess at. Though I’m fairly sure I remember seeing tiny crab apples on the tree (which is on a green near my house). I do have a crab apple in my own garden, but it has far fewer and smaller flowers. The fruits that it produces look very attractive though – they’re a rich deep red and make up for the less impressive flowers.

Cherry blossom on tree
Early spring blossom – it flowered a couple of weeks ago and has gone now.

On the same green, which runs along the other side of the road just opposite us, there are several trees that blossom in the spring. I’m always happy to see the first flowers on the cherry trees there, and this year I made a point of photographing them. They flower earlier than the double-flowered cherry in my garden and they’re a joyful signal that spring has arrived. But they seem to disappear again so quickly! Now the trees that were covered in blossom just a few weeks ago have not a trace of blossom left.

Double-flowered cherry blossom
Candy-floss pink blossom from the tree in my garden.

While those trees have finished, others are just now in bloom. The cherry tree in my front garden flowers in the last week or two of April. When we moved into this house, the tree was in full flower and felt like a generous welcome to our new home. So seeing it back in flower every year is like a little celebration of the happy years we’ve lived here.

However, as soon as the tree has managed to come completely into flower, the wind is busy tearing the petals off. (Sometimes we’re lucky and the weather stays calm for longer.) This weekend has been a bit rough on the unfortunate little flowers with strong winds scattering their petals all over the grass. They look like giant pink snowflakes! I managed to bring some flowers inside to photograph before they got blown away but they won’t last long.

Perhaps its fragility and short-lived beauty is an important part of the attraction of spring blossom…I know I’ll enjoy seeing it again when it returns next year. And, as usual, I’ll try to photograph it before it escapes me!

Cherry blossom in a vase.
The flowers look lovely in a vase for a little while, but the petals will soon start to fall.

A Flower for Easter.

flower photography, garden photography

It’s Easter Sunday today, so I thought I’d post a photograph of a pasqueflower (Pulsatilla vulgaris). This flower gets its name because it flowers around Easter time, with ‘pasque’ being like ‘paschal’, i.e. ‘relating to Easter’. (But I haven’t figured out whether the name should be one word or two. Pasqueflower or pasque flower? Both seem to be used.)

The Easter holiday tends to be a really busy time in the garden. Everything has started to grow very fast so that any old dead growth needs to have been cleared away to allow it space. (I leave the old foliage on some plants over winter to help protect them against frost.) The weeds are growing quickly too, so the battle with them keeps me busy. It seems like an unlikely and very distant dream that I might someday have a fairly weed-free garden!

But it’s seed-sowing that becomes the biggest rush for me. I really shouldn’t leave it so late. Everything else always feels so urgent and this year I’ve taken extra time to dig a pond. (That is going quite well and I’m hoping to have it done before the ground dries out and becomes really difficult to dig.) Now I need to get those seeds all sown and hope that all the tiny seedlings will have time to catch up…or they can just flower a bit late if they like!

With all the frantic gardening, it would be easy to forget to enjoy the garden itself and the tremendously sunny and warm weather we’re having this weekend. So I will make a point of sitting down for a while and just enjoy the outdoor scene for a bit. (That’s if the cat will let me have my seat…he thinks I put it in a nice sunny spot just for him!)

Whatever you’re doing this weekend, whether you celebrate Easter (or even have a long weekend for that matter), I hope you get a chance to get outside and enjoy some sunshine and the natural world. Happy Easter!

Gleaming White

flower photography, garden photography

Last week I mentioned my friend Judy’s beautiful garden and that I’d been able to spend a morning taking photographs in it. While I was there, I noticed that there were a good number of white flowers sprinkled around the garden and I really liked the effect they created.

There’s something very fresh and delicate about the appearance of white flowers. If they were pure white, they could seem a little harsh. But many have yellow stamens or perhaps a touch of another colour on their petals, and this softens the effect greatly. Seen growing in great numbers, perhaps spreading their way amongst other flowers, the look they create can be  quite dreamy or fairytale.

White flowers of Anemone blanda.
Anemone blanda soon builds up to a healthy colony if it’s in the right spot.

In combination with the blues and yellows of other spring flowers, white is truly beautiful. It brings a lively sparkle and gleam to the garden and chases away the memory of winter greys.

The most enchantingly impressive sight in Judy’s garden that morning was a Clematis armandii which had become a great mass of flowers along a section of fence. Not only are the flowers beautiful to look at – they’re scented too. That’s a pretty good bonus!

White flowers of Clematis armandi.
Clematis armandii flowers practically sparkle in the spring sunshine!

I enjoyed the effect of these white flowers so much that I’m thinking about ways of bringing a bit more white into my own garden. A background of green foliage makes white flowers look especially fresh and lively, so that is something I’d like to try.

There are a few white flowers in my garden. The best are Gaura lindheimeri, which has flowers that look like a flock of tiny white butterflies, and the white pulsatilla that I photographed last month. There’s also a big old white lilac (Madam Lemoine) which has very scented double white flowers and is a joy to be near…except that it has one problem. When its flowers die, they turn brown but don’t fall and because this lilac has become very tall now, it’s difficult to prune them off. The dead flowers really spoil the look of this lilac, so I will have to get out my telescopic lopper on a pole thingy to remove them. That will most likely be exhausting but worth it!

Magnolia stellata flower.
Magnolia stellata brings a touch of the exotic to the garden.

Snake’s Heads and Crowns of Leaves: Fritillaries

flower photography, garden photography

Snake’s head  fritillaries and crown imperial fritillaries are strange-sounding names for very unusual plants. For a photographer, the flowers make an enticing subject and I was lucky enough to be able to take some pictures of them in my friend Judy’s beautiful garden. (Thanks, Judy – I had a lovely time!)

The snake’s head fritillary (Fritillaria meleagris) gets its name from the shape of the unopened flower bud – long and pointy at the tip – a bit like a viper’s head. It has other folk-names, according to Richard Mabey’s ‘Flora Britannica’ (a fascinating book, worth dipping into if you happen to get the chance). These include crowcups, leper’s bells, sulky ladies, and frawcups (possibly derived from a place-name).

These fritillaries were recorded to be growing in gardens in the UK in 1578 but not recorded in the wild until 1736. Some say that this suggests they may not be native to the UK but, even so, they used to be seen in their thousands growing in damp meadows.  Sadly, as agriculture developed over time and land was drained and ‘improved’, they lost these habitats. There are still a few places where they can be found growing wild and, thankfully, they’re popular with gardeners, so they are still able to create a magical sight every spring.

Close-up of Fritillaria meleagris flower.
The markings on this fritillary look as if someone painted them on!

The tiny chequered markings on the snake’s head flowers are irresistible. They make me want to get as close as I can to photograph the flower, in an attempt to show how much they look as if they’ve been carefully painted on by hand. The graceful shape of the flower, with those almost umbrella-like ribs at the top adds to the attraction. (Doesn’t it look just as if the petals are fabric, stretching over the ribs that are holding it in shape? Umbrellas for the ‘wee folk’!) The way the bell of the flower hangs from its curving stem, with one or two long and slender leaves soaring up from it, completes a very elegant flower.

Yellow 'Crown Imperial' flowers. (Fritillaria imperialis.)
The crown imperial has an extraordinary top-knot of leaves!

The crown imperial fritillary is very different from its serpent-like sister. A dramatically long stem holds the bold cluster of flowers up high. Instead of the one or two leaves rising above the flowers, there is a generous top-knot of leaves, giving a very distinctive appearance. This ‘crown’ of arching leaves is said to have given the plant its name, due to its resemblance to the shape of an imperial crown. However, a competing claim suggests that the name derives from the plant having been grown in the Imperial Botanic Garden in Vienna after the plant was brought there from Persia in 1576.

Like the snake’s head fritillary, I wanted to be able to get close enough to the flower of the orange crown imperial to show the markings on its petals. (The veins on the petals of the yellow version are barely visible by comparison.) These darker veins create a strong pattern of lines that make the flower even more pleasing to photograph. These flowers are such star performers when you come to take their photograph, that I think I will need to try growing some fritillaries in my own garden.

Orange 'Crown Imperial' fritillaries. (Fritillaria imperialis.)
The prominent veins of these orange crown imperial flowers make them all the more striking.