Sara’s Fave Photos

There might be a special name for this kind of marking on flower petals, but I don’t know it. If you do, please clue me in. [later: Striated! Thank you!] They aren’t really stripes; more of spots and stripes mixed together. Anyway, I just love the way it looks. I took this in Seattle’s Volunteer Park dahlia garden that I just discovered this week, maintained by the Puget Sound Dahlia Association. Enjoy!

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more ravishing photo redness and SOOC for more straight-out-of-camera shots.

If you got here by clicking on a link, it might not be the latest post—Sara’s Fave Photos above will take you there. Be sure to try a tag or search for “dahlia” and see what you get!

I think this orchid is a kind of phalaenopsis, or butterfly-shaped one, but I can’t be sure, because when I am photographing flowers all thought of identification flies out of my head. I just see how beautiful they are and yearn to capture them perfectly. This beauty lives at the Volunteer Park Conservatory.

To all my international visitors, I hope the addition of Google Translate makes your time here more enjoyable. People from around the planet visit this blog and I am so grateful and happy that tools like Google Translate exist. Welcome to all!

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more ravishing redness, Color Carnival for more brilliant colors, and SOOC for more straight-out-of-the-camera shots.

If you like, search this blog for Volunteer Park Conservatory and see what other gems I’ve captured from there. And return to the latest post, always, by clicking on Sara’s Fave Photos above.

We went to Sequim (pronounced “skwim”) WA and had a great few days of vacation, camping and doing the relaxation thing in the very warm weather. Notice the cloudless blue sky reflected in the window? Meeting some friends for lunch, the restaurant had a particularly fine windowbox. I envy people who can combine flowers so well. Well done, Oak Table Cafe! And the food was good, too.

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more reds of all kinds. And this shot is straight out of the camera, or SOOC, where you can see more like that. Color Carnival has more bright, vibrant colors. Weekend Reflections has more visual reflections, too.

Browse around here for something new today. Perhaps a tag called “rain” might refresh on a warm day? And if you’ve arrived via the permalink, do click on Sara’s Fave Photos for the latest posts.

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.

The roses look good now. The challenges of the awful black spot and mildew that the endless wet weather created are mostly gone. I try to keep the fallen leaves and petals off the ground, so that means deadheading when the blooms start to get loose, before the petals fall. What a wonderful excuse to wander among the roses, clippers and bucket in hand, happily peering into the heart of each rose and gathering the spent ones. A pleasure, not a chore, to me.

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more ruby redness. And click on a new tag or category while you are here, you hear? The latest post can always be found at 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.

I am very happy with this first real rose bouquet from my garden. The rosebushes were put in late last spring, so we couldn’t pick very much at all last summer, or at least not with any stem to speak of, to save the energy of the fledgling plants.

But after a year they are going pretty well, most of them—at least those that are not having real trouble with blackspot, mildew, and now I see critter holes near the roots of some of them. Sigh. My mom used to shrug and say, “The vicissitudes of gardening . . .” and what else can you say? That’s why we planted 18 rosebushes, so that I would be sure to be able to have a bouquet or two.

Happy Ruby Tuesday, all. See what the participants there have going on for the weekly celebration of rubiness. And you can always click on the Ruby Tuesday category in the sidebar to see some of my other photos showcasing the color red. Or try Color Carnival for more brilliant colors. Returning to the main blog is easy; just click on Sara’s Fave Photos.

I find these Double Delight roses irresistable. Their form, their magnificent coloration, their sweet and spicy scent just is perfection in a rose to me. I read that their unusual reddish edging, which is much darker in full sunshine and only a streaky (but still beautiful!) pink when the rose is blooming mostly in shade, was considered a flaw. How about that?

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more ruby redness of all kinds. If you browse around here, be sure to click on Sara’s Fave Photos when you want to get back to the latest post.

Yet another rose from the rainy photo session the other day. This ‘Dolly Parton’ rose is one of my favorites, and the photo actually doesn’t do it justice. It’s the most scintillating shade of deep red-orange, wildly fragrant, and of course has that great name.

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more magnificent reds, and Color Carnival for more wild color.

You might try a new search term or tag like “red” or “pink” on this blog. Click on Sara’s Fave Photos to get back to the full blog after your wanderings.

I know I posted one of these croton plants not too long ago, but this photo is even cuter than the last one, I think. I love the new growth and its improbable green color. This one, like the last one, lives in Seattle’s Volunteer Park Conservatory, an amazing and inspiring place.

Check out a few new tags or categories here (you can always find your way back to the latest post by clicking Sara’s Fave Photos above), then visit Color Carnival and Ruby Tuesday for more interesting color shots, and try SOOC for more straight-out-of-the-camera shots. I don’t crop, either, by the way, or hardly at all. Digital photography is such a blessing in that you can take as many photos as your heart desires, for free, so it’s just easier for me to take enough images to get a good one without too much fussing. Or any, like in this case.

This chenille plant, or Acalypha hispida, was growing in Seattle’s Volunteer Park Conservatory recently. Isn’t it a fine and lovely thing, and don’t you just want to touch it?

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more rosy rubiness seen everywhere. And be sure to click on the Ruby Tuesday category and the Red tag at the left for more variations on the red theme right here. Sara’s Fave Photos on the header will bring you back to the full blog.

My mom used to grow all kinds of bromeliads in South Florida where she lived for many years. She said they like to be watered only from the top and collect water in their centers. You know that the center brilliance is not really a flower, but it sure looks like one, doesn’t it?  Here’s one from the Volunteer Park Conservatory that you might enjoy.

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more fascinating rubiness, Color Carnival for more bright colors, and SOOC for more straight-out-of-the-camera shots. Click on Sara’s Fave Photos above for the complete blog.

I’m posting two recent photos of my garden of the back border. The top one with the rhodies was taken earlier in the month, and the lower one was taken in mid-month (the geum is the red round flowers). They have a very different feel, don’t they? Which do you prefer?

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more visions of red seen everywhere. And click on Sara’s Fave Photos above if you ever want to find your way back to the latest post.

I like this post a LOT, especially the bottom photo, so I am tagging this Best Post of the Week.

These are from Pike Place Market in Seattle, where they are just starting to be available. I love peonies. Their scent transports me. I have some in my garden, and for the first time they are covered in buds, because I finally realized that they like alkaline, not acid, soil. I can’t wait until my own bloom, but here are these until then.

Visit Ruby Tuesday and Color Carnival to see more wonderful photos with a theme (in the blogging world, that’s a meme). And after wandering through tags and categories and archives around here, click on Sara’s Fave Photos above to get back to the latest post.