Sara’s Fave Photos

Here’s a bouquet of roses I picked for my cousin Sheila who is visiting. If only you could smell the fragrance! The top dark orange one is Dolly Parton (love that name!), the yellow one is Peace, and the apricot one is Sundowner, I’m pretty sure. One day, I hope in my lifetime, there will be a device attached to your computer which will emit odors. Good smells only, of course. After all, if there’s enough computing power, why not? Fragrance is only molecules wafting towards us. In the meantime, you must imagine.

Visit Mellow Yellow Monday, Color Carnival and Macro Monday for more of the same. And you might try a search for bouquet here, always returning to the full blog by clicking on Sara’s Fave Photos above.

This cactus macro lives at the Volunteer Park Conservatory, in the succulent area. All cacti are succulents, but not all succulents are cacti, you know. This one is about as wide across as my hand on top. I’ve been to the American Southwest and you develop an appreciation for how beautiful they can be.

Visit Macro Monday, Mellow Yellow Monday, and a new meme, Cactus Monday, for more interesting photos. If you’ve arrived here from another link, you can access the latest blog posts by clicking on Sara’s Fave Photos, above. But before you leave, try visiting a new tag or category here. “Close up” tag, perhaps?

These are from my Peace rosebush a few weeks ago. There are still blooms out there, but not in the full heady flush you get in July. Enjoy their vision of perfection.

Visit Shadow Shot Sunday for more interesting shadows, Today’s Flowers for more lovely blooms, Macro Monday for more wonderful close ups and Mellow Yellow Monday for more photos with a splash of yellow. If you’ve arrived via the permalink, you can find the latest posts at Sara’s Fave Photos. Don’t be shy; click it and see what’s new!

A recent visit to Seattle’s Pike Place Market flower vendors delighted and impressed, as always. What a place. Do you know that the flower vendors can only sell the flowers they have grown themselves?

Here’s a dahlia bouquet with the original touch of being ringed with marigolds. Or maybe they are coreopsis. Don’t you want it on your kitchen table, whatever they are called?

Visit Macro Monday, Mellow Yellow Monday, Color Carnival and Ruby Tuesday after poking around here. If you’ve arrived via the permalink, Sara’s Fave Photos has the regular blog.

This year the seed-started cosmos plants have done very well. The cool wet spring helped them to get established, especially since the slugs don’t seem to like them. Some of the plants had a real problem, like the petunias, but the cosmos all stood undevoured. Now they are beginning to take off. Don’t forget that they are good in bouquets, too!

Visit Macro Monday for more wonderful close ups of all kinds. Color Carnival has more bright colors. Mellow Yellow Monday thinks everything is better with a splash of yellow. Isn’t it? The Shadow is kind of neat, too. And this one is SOOC, or straight out of the camera.

Try a new link or category while you are here. Why not? The latest post is always at Sara’s Fave Photos.

Here’s a beauty of an orchid photographed at the Volunteer Park Conservatory in Seattle. Wonderful place. I don’t know the name of the yellow ones in back, but the front ones are Phalaenopsis, which I think means Looks Like a Butterfly. Which is does.

Visit Mellow Yellow Monday for more splashes of cheerful yellow and Macro Monday for more fabulous closeups.

While you’re here, try a new tag or category. And return to the latest post  by clicking on Sara’s Fave Photos, above.

My ‘Oklahoma’ rosebush has the deepest red roses, which try as I might, I cannot photograph, or even Photoshop, into a closer approximation of reality. The actual color of the flowers is the deepest, darkest, richest, burgundy red, and almost black in the shadows. You’ll just have to imagine.

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more ruby redness around the world. And this is also a post for Macro Monday and Blue Monday. Is that sky blue enough? And I like this photo so much I’ve called it my Best Post of the Week.

If you’ve found this post from the permalink, getting to the latest photo post is easy. Just click on Sara’s Fave Photos above.

This lovely lily is probably a ‘Stargazer’ lily, rubrum speciosa, taken on that Federal Way Symphony Garden Tour yesterday. I understand that all lilies like this used to point downwards, and growers managed to develop one whose blooms pointed upwards, thus “star gazer.” Great name, no?

Visit Today’s Flowers for more wonderful blossoms of all kinds, Macro Flowers Saturday and Macro Monday for close ups, Ruby Tuesday for wonderful reds and Color Carnival for brilliant color. Whew!

You might click on the “pink” or “red” tag at left or search for something new as long as you are here. Return to the latest post by clicking on Sara’s Fave Photos.

Feverfew is one of those herbs that sometimes appear as a weed, brought by the birds. I am lucky I recognized it and put the small plant where it would thrive. Sometimes volunteer plants are a gift, no? Now it is covered with masses of small white flowers, great in bouquets, that even did fine in our recent heatwave. It’s asking a lot of a garden to go from cool and 60s to a couple of days of sunny and mid 90s. But all is well.

Visit Macro Monday and Mellow Yellow Monday for more of the same. Try browsing here and there first, and you can always get back to the main blog by clicking on Sara’s Fave Photos.

This yellow King’s Ransom beauty is fragrant, too.  Most of the roses in my new rosebed had to be pruned off due to the rain (they got all brown and ugly) but this one made it to perfection for us. But more are in bud, so if the weather dries out a bit we’ll have some more soon.

Visit Macro Monday and Mellow Yellow Monday after browsing around here. To return to the latest post, click on Sara’s Fave Photos above.

Here’s another perfect rose, bathed in raindrops. This is the Peace rose, always a fave of me and so many others. I love its creamy yellow petals, edged with the palest, sweetest pink, and its healthy, bright green leaves. Like all my roses, it is fragrant. Why else have roses?

Visit Macro Monday and Mellow Yellow Monday for two great memes of close ups and cheerful yellow photos, and SOOC for more straight-out-of-the-camera shots.

You can search this blog for “rain,” perhaps, and find other roses with water droplets on them if you like. Or how about a tag like “reflections”? Click on Sara’s Fave Photos above to return to the full blog.

I took a walk in the Wallingford neighborhood of Seattle last week.

This old-fashioned rose with a single row of petals sometimes is prettier than the huge ruffled kind. Below that is ceanothus (see-an-OH-thus), or Wild Lilac in California, or California Lilac up here in Seattle. It also has a sweet scent and can become quite a big shrubby plant, covered in blue in the spring. When I lived in Northern California, it was common and wild, and bloomed with yellow broom on the rolling hills. Pretty nice!

Visit Macro Monday, Mellow Yellow Monday and Blue Monday after wandering about here.

One of the very best things about the Pike Place Market flower vendors is their complete disregard for typical florist combinations. No one told them that bouquets are not supposed to be made with regular old garden flowers. Since they must sell only what they grow, the combinations that result are not seen anywhere else. Below is a bouquet with a Shirley poppy (I think), lupine or bluebonnet in the back, and Dutch iris.

Visit Macro Monday, Blue Monday, Color Carnival and Mellow Yellow Monday for more of the same idea. And do check out a new tag or category on each visit here, just for fun. Return to the full blog by clicking Sara’s Fave Photos in the header.

My sister and I went on an architectural tour in Seattle on a cloudy day after a rain and all I could photograph was a flower. No, that’s not exactly true, but that’s sure what I am attracted to. Here’s a lovely early rose in some lucky person’s garden.

Visit Macro Monday for more things seen close up, and Color Carnival for more brilliant color. Find the latest post here by clicking on Sara’s Fave Photos above.

Some bouquets of fresh yellow tulips in cellophane photographed at Pike Place Market a week or so ago for your viewing pleasure. Notice the tiny water droplets on the cellophane wrapper? I love that.

Visit Mellow Yellow Monday, Color Carnival and Macro Monday after browsing around here. Try clicking one of the tags to the lower left. You can return to the latest post always by clicking on Sara’s Fave Photos above.