It’s winter outside — the ground is covered in white, the temperature is in the teens. But this morning I walked into a breath of spring when I visited the McNeely Conservatory in Como Park. The Winter Flower Show is now on display in the Sunken Garden, and it’s colors and sights are a treat to the eyes as much as its smells and scents are wonderful to experience. The pinks of the azaleas and the pale whites and yellows of the pansies were a beautiful combination of color — soft and delicate as only spring can be. In order to create a “softer” feel to this photograph, I placed a piece of plastic wrap over my lens. It had a wonderful effect of softening the lines and making the image more about the colors and the “feel” of the colors than of the lines of the flowers. As we deal with the snow storm that’s moving through over the next three days, I’ll easily return to my photos and my memories of the smells and colors of the conservatory garden.
florals
Holiday roses
Whereas most people enjoy the year-end holidays with poinsettias, I’m fortunate to have a dozen red roses to celebrate my birthday. They’re beautiful and smell lovely, and are a nice change from the usual Christmas decorations. And with the subzero temperatures outside and our white coating of snow, they’re a nice reminder that summer will be here, even if it’s later than sooner.
This post marks the beginning on my second year of blogging. Thank you to those of you who have commented on my entries, and thanks to the many readers and followers. If you enjoy my posts, you can now subscribe to my blog and get email notification when I’ve posted new entries – just click on the “Sign me up!” box on the right side of the screen and enter your email address. Thanks again, and happy new year!
Fall colors
How quickly we’ve moved from late summer to fall! The weather change happened almost overnight, with cooler temps and much-needed rain settling into the area. Everyone was digging out their sweaters and jackets, and looking for cool-weather comfort foods to warm them up. With the season change it seems we all look to deeper, richer colors, as seen in the dark maroons and golds of the mums that are in full bloom in our area. Their colors remind us that the lighter shades of summer are past, just like the sun’s heat. But there’s great beauty in the fall too, and they’re a prime example. Soon the leaves on the trees will turn to the reds, golds, and oranges, and they will fall down to decorate the lawns and streets — one last blast of color before the white of winter settles in.
Hard at work
Everyone is busy getting ready for fall, including the bees. The asters are in full bloom in our backyard, and they seem to be a magnet for the bees. It’s exciting to see all the activity; I wonder at all the flying and flitting around that they do. It was fascinating to observe this one bee as he moved from bloom to bloom, stopping for short while and then moving on to another. Our summer-like weather has yet to turn over to fall temperatures, so he’s like all of us – busily trying to get all those jobs and tasks done that we’ve put off hoping that summer would last longer than September.
White cosmos
Earlier this week I found myself at the Munsinger Clemens Gardens in St. Cloud, Minnesota. It was late in the day and the sun was getting lower in the sky. These beautiful gardens are located right along the Mississippi River. I’d been here earlier in the year when the tulips, daffodils, and iris were brilliantly proclaiming spring, but now it seems that the flowers are bravely holding on to our last bit of summer. They bloom as if the days were still long and the nights were still warm. They dance in the setting sun and promise that although fall is almost upon us, they will return with their lovely faces and welcome us to warm weather again next year.
lindastaatsphoto.com 