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Christmas Cactus Sunday, Nov 15 2015
Esperanza christmas cactus, photographs 21:54
At least they are consistent. I was flipping through photographs from last year, attempting to come up with something relevant*, and noted that I photographed them during the first two weeks of November last year, so they must have been at the height of their bloom then. This year, the same: all three younger ones are blooming like mad right. Two orange/gold and a multi (pink/white), which is actually two plants in one pot. Go figure. At least they’ll look good for some visitors this week.
It must be something about the timing of the blossom set, now is it by temperature or light I wonder? And do I really want to force a plant? I don’t like doing that to them, somehow.
*I could write all day about church budgets, revisions to Episcopal Church structure, parliamentary rules of meeting, trains in the Farmington River valley, reservoirs, trees, or…I can pinch hit and publicly read complicated chunks of OT too!
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Amongst the giants Saturday, Jan 17 2015
Landscapes and Modern Photos photographs 22:19
From front to back: (off screen, itty bitty American Beech), Red Oak, Cucumber Magnolia, (really, really, itty, bitty white oak) Tulip Tree. Spacing is around 30-45 feet between trees, the beech is closer to the oak than any of the others, because the oak is elderly.
On light Monday, Dec 29 2014
Julie's Pond and Landscapes and Modern Photos gardens, landscapes, photographs 22:06
particularly reflected light. Many places are so solidly lit that shadows don’t really exist. Try making decent shadows in a fast food restaurant, a store, an office, or a doctor’s office. You can’t. The same is true of many houses: wall lighting, overhead, track lighting, etc. Shadow puppets? What’s that?
Leaving aside the interesting philosophical exercise of stretching points that this can lead to….it also means that all the old tricks to brighten a room seem a little bit dull. Mirrors don’t have much depth in full light. They just reflect precisely what is there, whereas in a dark room: what was that shadow? And if the glass has any ripples! Mirrors have personality, but only when the darkness is there.
I always end up thinking about light at this time of the year. And mirrors, but not just of glass. At this time of year, every night when I do the horse, Julie’s Pond is present down in the woods. No leaf cover of course, and the sun angle is such that it is visible from the hill top. A steel gray gleam in the forest, still and silent, sometimes a tongue of fire at sundown that fades into nothingness.
Other times of the year…it can look like this. (I can’t claim this picture, much as I’d like to) Where does the water end and the light begin?
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‘Closed Canopy’ Wednesday, Aug 14 2013
gardening and Modern Photos gardening, photographs, trees 10:33
Technically, in a forest a fully mature stand is referred to as having a ‘closed canopy’: the tree has grown together and there is no open sky. If viewed from above the two big oaks and the cucumber magnolia have a closed canopy. You won’t see the north lawn in the summer from above no matter what you do. However, trees like their space, they compete, they quarrel, and they do not happily share. You can see the dividing line quite nicely in this photo, looking straight up: the magnolia is the left side, the oak the right (the third oak has a bit of the top left as well)
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Garden Flowers circa 1925 Tuesday, Jul 30 2013
gardening and Historic Photos gardening, historic photographs, history, photographs 10:16
I haven’t happily identified the woman yet, someone connected with Bradford Ellsworth, possibly his first wife Juliet Inness?
Nice dress….
I do know the picture was taken in the big garden, and those are probably classic New England/New York asters. Clearly, the plant breeders have been had at work making them smaller.
The photo by the way is actually a scanned negative, aren’t computers wonderful?
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Acair Fearann 