Dew Drops on Dicentra

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Dicentra formosa grows in my garden in shady, moist places amid tiny violets, ferns, and mosses.  Its ability to gather and hold dew drops not only in the leaf centers but on all its edges also is a constant delight.

These photos are my offering to Macro Monday 2 

where you will find macro photos from all over the globe.

© Copyright 2006-2015, Raven Ridge Gardens. All rights reserved.

Sparaxis In Red And Yellow

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Get your yellow on!  

I took this yesterday (Saturday in the northern hemisphere) when the sun came out for a few precious minutes. I love the contrast of the bright colors of the petals of this Sparaxis, also known by its common name Harlequin Flower, against the brown earth.

Sparaxis comes in many colors, another of which you can see here. They propagate easily by dropping bulblets that form in the stems when they die back, and then pop up everywhere in my yard in early Spring - even in the lawn.

Photographers are posting photos featuring yellow over on Monday Mellow Yellows.

© Copyright 2006-2015, Raven Ridge Gardens. All rights reserved.

Shadows In the Woods

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It was tough finding a good shadow shot this morning with our watery sun trying to peek through the clouds and fog.  I tried many shots of different areas around the gardens and then looked here just as the sun pierced both the clouds and the forest to reveal - this.

For more shadow shots from photographers around the world, visit Shadow Shot Sunday 2.

© Copyright 2006-2015, Raven Ridge Gardens. All rights reserved.

Vernal Equinox 2015

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This first calendar day of spring is sporting a mix of sun and clouds, much like this Hellebore is a mix of muted petals and bright stamens. It's warmer, spring buds are swelling, some early flowers are blooming, and the days are getting longer and longer. I've even begun to mow the knee-high grass!

Happy Spring!

© Copyright 2006-2015, Raven Ridge Gardens. All rights reserved.

Yellow

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The shrub lives behind a thicket of blackberry canes, a large Rhododendron, a Japanese maple, and many low-growing bulbs and violets.

Sometimes I almost forget that it's there.  This spring it stretched its branches out beyond the rest of the tangle of flora and proceeded to bloom like never before.

Deep yellow blooms that pop against the background of green.  I'm embarrassed to admit that I've forgotten its name.

[Ed note:  I found an earlier post of this flowering shrub and now have the name - Kerria Japonica, 'Pleniflora'.]

© Copyright 2006-2015, Raven Ridge Gardens. All rights reserved.

Calla Lily and Spider

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I've posted several variations on this theme over the years but never tire of taking photos of these intriguing spiders that change colors with the plant they are inhabiting at any given time.

They usually hide out deep in the stamen cup, waiting for unwary bees and bugs.

I can bring them out by gently blowing on them. They will come up the stamen ready to attack the interloper, but this one just kept on climbing up and out of the flower and was getting ready to slip from view when I clicked the shutter.

Ah, life in the garden.

© Copyright 2006-2015, Raven Ridge Gardens. All rights reserved.

Nodding Daffodils

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These small daffodils (a mere 8-inches tall and the same ones from this photo), with their nodding heads, are difficult to photograph without laying down on the (wet) ground and shooting upwards, making it a challenge to capture their pretty little yellow faces.

Still, it wouldn't be Monday without Monday Mellow Yellows.  Check out the photos featuring the color yellow from photographers all around the world.

© Copyright 2006-2015, Raven Ridge Gardens. All rights reserved.

Swallows and Freesias

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In our neighborhood, no matter what the calendar says, Spring begins the day the swallows arrive. This year it began on Thursday, March 12th, which is the day my friend and neighbor D spotted a pair of swallows flitting and swooping overhead.

She and I engage in a friendly who-will-see-them-first competition.  This year she won. I didn't see them until the following day, but what a thrill.

This is why I love the swallows: They have their babies in our barn and under the eaves of the house, making me a baby swallow grandmother of sorts, as I watch out for their well being all season until they fledge.

Another sure sign of Spring in my garden is this deeply scented Freesia, which I found blooming when I went on my camera-in-hand garden rounds Friday morning.  I took these photos early in the morning under cloudy skies with no flash.  I am enamored by their rather fuzzy, sultry look, surrounded by yet-to-be-cleaned-up winter weeds entangled in new spring growth.

© Copyright 2006-2015, Raven Ridge Gardens. All rights reserved.

Early Spring Sparaxis

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This is another one of those harbinger-of-Spring flowers that will pop up anytime in February or March. They are a sweet indication that Spring is just around the corner - and, yes, I do purposefully capitalize Spring; it's been a long time coming for so many.

Sparaxis are easy-growing, care free little bulbs that will drop their bulblets at the end of the season, which will then sprout and multiply for the following Spring. They come in myriad colors and patterns, seem to be slug-proof and deer-proof, and will bring a spot of much needed color to late winter/early spring.

© Copyright 2006-2015, Raven Ridge Gardens. All rights reserved.

Spring Primrose

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These days, when the weather permits, I stroll around my garden beds picking up detritus from the winter storms, trying to not disturb any salamanders, just moseying from one bed to the next - my husband calls this my Zen gardening.

Yesterday as I lifted a few dried fern fronds from a wet and messy border, this perky little primrose seemed to pop out of nowhere.  I'd forgotten where I had planted it.  Now it is found.

Monday Mellow Yellows features photos that celebrate yellow every Monday. Check it out.

© Copyright 2006-2015, Raven Ridge Gardens. All rights reserved.

Still Life With Shadows

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The sun was shouting its last and most glorious hurrah of the day just before slipping below the horizon when it bathed the corner of the living room, already a study in reds, in a rosy-golden light that cast deep black shadows on the wall.

My offering to Shadow Shot Sunday 2.  Do go visit their site for world-wide shadow shots.

© Copyright 2006-2015, Raven Ridge Gardens. All rights reserved.

Signs of Spring

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Signs of spring are appearing everywhere in the garden, around town, and throughout the county. The robins are back in droves denuding the Cotoneaster tree of its berries, small Ruby-Crowned Kinglets and Golden-Crowned Kinglets are flitting in and out of shrubs, catching the newly hatched gnats and other sources of food that are invisible to my eye. The grasses have grown to almost knee height, making the time when I can get in and mow (when it's dry enough) a hard and odious chore.

Yesterday and today have been so full of glorious sunshine that the chilly breeze accompanying it can largely be ignored.

Rhodies and azaleas are blooming, tiny irises are blooming, there are new green tips on the redwood trees, salamanders are beginning to stir, the deer are back (and eating my just-leafing-out roses), tiny hummingbirds are pulling the fluff from Japanese anemones to line their nests, what I like to call our bevy of resident quail have made their appearance - their sudden en masse burst of flight always startling -, small bumble bees are bumbling around the ever-blooming tiny Fuchsias, and I could revel in this season forever.

© Copyright 2006-2015, Raven Ridge Gardens. All rights reserved.