Three cheers to Rebecca of In the Garden for coming up with a great way to beat the winter blues: a “rainbow challenge.” Her suggestion was for us to post pictures of flowers in all colors of the rainbow in one post. I’m taking a slightly different angle: a series of posts, each focusing on one color. I’ve been thinking about a red post for a while, so it seemed like the perfect place to start. Here are some of my favorite images, starting with an early October shot from my front garden.
I know, I know…it’s time for Bloom Day. But look, I’ve got nothin’. There isn’t anything that I haven’t already shown multiple times, and I’m at a total loss for a creative way to present the same old things. Still, it’s hard to break years of conditioning, so I’m posting on the 15th anyway. But this time, I’m taking a different tack on the magical number of three: Instead of three different neat plants, I’m looking at one plant at three different times during the year. My first subject: ‘Blue Fortune’ hybrid hyssop (Agastache).
Text and photos ©Nancy J. Ondra
It’s good to be back in the land of the bloggers. I’ve endured nearly 11 days of an unplanned and undesired vacation due to losing my DSL connection before Christmas. Apparently Verizon didn’t consider it convenient to send out a technician to solve the problem until this morning. In the meantime, I made arrangements to switch to a different service provider, and the changeover should occur later this week. I’ll update my contact e-mail on my About page when I get my new address. Assuming all goes well, I should be back to my usual blogging here and at Gardening Gone Wild very soon.
I made good use of my time offline (except for dealing with some internet withdrawl issues), at least: Besides doing my bookkeeping, reorganizing my office, and cleaning out closets that I hadn’t touched since I moved in eight years ago, I completed the herculean task of tagging all of the many thousands of images in my photo archives, including the last two years of images with no ID info whatsoever. Now, I’m all set to start work on a new book project over the next few months. But first, I’m delighted to start on a fresh list of neat plants for the new year. (more…)
Text and photos ©Nancy J. Ondra
It’s time for Bloom Day again, and…um, Daniel dearest, there’s no need to look so bored. I’m sure I can find something to show. Yes, I realize that the weather has been uncooperative; I too have been slogging through the recent snow, ice, slush, rain, and mud (though, granted, I don’t have to do it in bare feet, as you and your brother do). Why, look at that: some gorgeous flowers right next to me, on the ‘Washington Park’ witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis): (more…)
Text and photos ©Nancy J. Ondra
I started this series over at Gardening Gone Wild, but since I’ll be busy for the next few weeks building the Garden Bloggers’ Idea Gallery over there, I figured I’d finish up this part of my fun-with-nomenclature series over here. You can find the previous color-related posts at Black, White, and Shades of Gray and Through the Rainbow Part I. And now, the conclusion. (more…)
