A caress and a consolation

"What delights us in the spring is more a sensation than an appearance, more a hope than any visible reality. There is something in the softness of the air, in the lengthening of the days, in the very sounds and odors of the sweet time, that caresses us and consoles us after the rigorous weeks of winter."

- Philip Gilbert Hamerton

I'd like to think that this is the reason I'm so dissatisfied with all of my photos, 

why something seems to be missing from them - 

it is impossible, after all, to capture the essence of Spring in a photograph.

But I try just the same.

Wordless Wednesday - Wings to fly

The second photo in this series is my entry for this month's Gardening Gone Wild Picture This Photo Contest.  The theme is "Late Summer Garden."

Wordless Wednesday - the Maples of Maymont

Visit the Maymont website here.

A glow from within

The theme of Gardening Gone Wild's April "Picture This" contest is "Let's Talk About Light" and the challenge is to match the subject with the light.  Rob Cardillo, the judge, offers wonderful advise and some samples of his work in the post about the contest here.  In reading it I realized something about my own attempts to match the light to the subject:  I've been nearly ignoring the subject and trying to capture the light.  The light is what mesmerizes me, especially in the Fall and Spring, but all year long in the early morning and late afternoon.  
It's impossible, of course, to capture the light.  And in reality its the mood that the light evokes that I want to freeze in time and save.

Early morning on my beloved Lake Norman

The color of the Japanese Maple as it comes to life

The unfolding of the clematis bloom

The dogwoods at their peak

There are countless images stored on my computer of these scenes - the lake, the maple and dogwood, and the clematis.  But I won't be entering any of them in the contest.  Instead I'll be entering this photo of an iris.  I can't tell you the name of the iris,  just that I dug it and several more like it from my mother-in-law's garden after she died five years ago.  They were the first bulbs I planted in my new garden.  They bloomed nicely the first and second years, but not at all the third.  Last year I had one bloom.  And so I dug them up (they had multiplied several times over) and moved them - giving them more room and more sun.  This week they began blooming - all of them - tall and happy and reaching for the sky.  I go out every morning to admire them and remember my mother-in-law.  They seem a little shy, as she was, but when the morning sun shines on them just right they glow from within, just like she did.

September days

"September days have the warmth of summer in their briefer hours, but in their lengthening evenings a prophetic breath of autumn. The cricket chirps in the noontide, making the most of what remains of his brief life. The bumblebee is busy among the clover blossoms of the aftermath, and their shrill and dreamy hum hold the outdoor world above the voices of the song birds, now silent or departed."

- September Days By Rowland E. Robinson, Vermont.

September days are warm but the cool mornings and evenings are such a blessing after our long hot summer.  Walking through the garden I see ravaged and tired plants alongside new buds and fresh blooms.  Butterflies and caterpillars are in abundance and bees are busy on the blooms of the Oranges and Lemons Gaillardia and the Tri-color Sedum.  

The Astilbe and Heuchera and some of the Hardy Ageratum have been devoured by bunnies or insects.  But I was happy to see that the fennel, though totally devoured, had been providing food for these black swallowtail caterpillars.

The late afternoon sun seemed to be shining a spotlight on the Lantana and this swallowtail.

And I loved the way the sun shone through the leaves of the Coleus and the Japanese Maple.

Trees and shrubs are adorned with berries - Nandina, Pyracantha, Dogwood, and Holly.

Soon the mums will be in bloom, the leaves will be falling, and we'll need sweaters to sit outside in the evening.  I can't wait!

Fly away

Walking through the front yard yesterday, these seed pods on the Japanese maple caught my eye.  They look ready to fly away!  (Click the picture for a close-up view)