Spring in Texas: Bluebonnets!

Photographed in Austin, Texas, 3.26.2011

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Butchart Gardens bee

I found this image in my archives recently—photographed at Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island north of Victoria, Canada three years ago. If you’re a garden lover or love to photograph gardens, put this place at the top of your “to visit” list. It is spectacular!

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Kaleidoscope!

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Tulip trio

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Fringed Tulips

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Blushing

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Check out my newly-updated Zenfolio botanical gallery here.

Pink Tulip

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Grape Hyacinth

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Spring glow

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Check out my newly-updated Zenfolio botanical gallery (with almost 600 photos!) here.

Triumph Tulip ‘Negrita’

Can you tell how enamored I am with this beautiful flower?

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

 

Spring has sprung!

Yesterday was officially the first day of spring, so it was fitting that my friend Karen and I make a stop at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden while we were out at her lakehouse in Lake Land ‘Or. The botanical garden is just 30 minutes away. This photograph was made in the conservatory, which was just a jumble of spring color.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Dendrobium Orchid

I photographed this jewel-toned Dendrobium Orchid at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden’s Orchids galore! conservatory exhibit. The exhibit features more than 2,000 orchids, including 500 museum quality specimens. The exhibit kicks off the Garden’s annual spring celebration, A Million Blooms. The Dendrobium genus of orchids contains about 1,200 species and was established by Olof Swartz in 1799. The name is derived from the Greek dendron (tree) and bios (life), meaning “one who lives on trees.”

© Cindy Dyer. All right reserved.

Pink sheep

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Triumph Tulip ‘Negrita’

Triumph tulips result from crossings between varieties of short-stemmed Early tulips and long-stemmed Darwin tulips. They are hardy in Zones 3-8 and make excellent potted plants. They require full sun and bloom in mid-spring. I photographed this beautiful bloom against a backdrop of bright yellow daffodils in the conservatory at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Muscari (Grape Hyacinth)

I think this specimen could be Muscari ‘Valerie Finnis’ or Muscari azureum. Anyone care to confirm? I photographed this tiny flower at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond this afternoon. More little spring beauties to come…

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

‘Blue Mystique’ Moth Orchid

I photographed this ‘Blue Mystique’ Moth Orchid (Phalaenopsis) in the conservatory at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden this afternoon. Silver Vase introduced the “world’s first true blue orchid” in January of this year. These blooms, which start out as white, are not painted, sprayed or hybridized. The plant gets its color through a patented process that induces the blue color in flowers. The process takes anywhere from 48-90 hours to induce the color into the flowers.

While I do love naturally blue flowers, I’m not so sure about this one yet. I had hoped it would possibly be a hybrid, but it is simply chemically altered. Silver Vase’s website notes that the chemical elements are “naturally derived and environmentally conscious.” The buds are closed at the time they are treated, so as the orchid grows, a new stem can bloom either white flowers or a range of blue hues from azure to sapphire to royal blue and every shade in between. What do you think?

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Sunset + (super?)moon over the Potomac River

Michael and I ventured out to the Mount Vernon Parkway before 7:00 p.m. this evening to scout out a good spot to wait for the much-anticipated and much-heralded “Supermoon.” I’m sorry to have to report that I was a tiny bit disappointed. I confess that I was hoping for that end-of-the-world-large-encroaching-orb-could-swallow-us-whole-fodder-for-a-science-fiction-movie effect, but it didn’t happen.

Yes, it was a lovely moon—slightly larger than usual and a bit brighter. I guess I was expecting it to flood the horizon so fully that I would have to take off my Nikkor 80-400 zoom lens and put on the 50mm just to catch it all in my viewfinder. So large that I would hear audible gasps from the neighboring photographers, then perhaps we would spontaneously hold hands and break into song (Kumbaya, perhaps?). Didn’t happen.

The moon I photographed in Huntsville, Alabama a few years ago seemed a whole lot larger and a lumen or two brighter than tonight’s “Supermoon.” You can view that posting here. I was, however, taken in by the sunset’s show earlier.

Hey! Guess what? I was just ready to publish this post and decided to Google this search: “supermoon was disappointing tonight,” just to see if anyone had the same reaction that I did.

I found this on space.com: On Saturday night, the moon will arrive at perigee at 19:09 UT (3:09 p.m. Eastern Time). Its distance from the Earth at the moment will be 221,565 miles. But just over three years ago, on Dec. 12, 2008, which was also the night of a full moon, the moon reached perigee at 21:39 UT (4:39 p.m. Eastern Time) at a distance of 221,559 miles, about 6 miles closer than Saturday night’s perigee distance. So it seems Saturday night’s supermoon will actually be just a little less super than the full moon of Dec. 2008. (You can read skywatching columnist Joe Rao’s full article here.)

Why do I find this so interesting? Well, I photographed that moon near the Huntsville Airport in December 12, 2008! So my eyes (and my memory) did remember a more impressive sky that night than tonight. Unlike tonight, I wasn’t even hunting for it —my friend Sue had picked me up from the airport and I asked her to pull over so I could get a few shots of the spectacular moon! Who would have thought that the moon being only six miles closer to the earth would make such a noticeable difference?

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Re-post: A riot of color

Originally posted 3.11.2008. Photographs taken at the U.S. Botanic Garden during their annual Orchid exhibit

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Re-post: One of my favorite macro shots

Originally posted 7/9/2009

The Praying Mantis by Ogden Nash

From whence arrived the praying mantis?
From outer space, or lost Atlantis?
glimpse the grin, green metal mug
at masks the pseudo-saintly bug,
Orthopterous, also carnivorous,
And faintly whisper, Lord deliver us.

Photo © Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

http://cindydyer.zenfolio.com/p270076135

 

I’m looking for something in red…

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

 

And finally, Purplelicious Installment #4

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Last year I wrote a newsletter article for the FlowershopNetwork.com. Check out “A Passion for Purple Flowers” here.

Purplelicious Installment #3

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Last year I wrote a newsletter article for the FlowershopNetwork.com. Check out “A Passion for Purple Flowers” here.

Purplelicious Installment #2

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Last year I wrote a newsletter article for the FlowershopNetwork.com. Check out “A Passion for Purple Flowers” here.

Purplelicious Installment #1

© Cindy Dyer. All rights reserved.

Last year I wrote a newsletter article for the FlowershopNetwork.com. Check out “A Passion for Purple Flowers” here.