AfternoonColour: May Day 2013

I placed my long-lived cactuses outside today for their summer sojourn. This year they're on tree stumps next to the shade garden. Dragonwing Begonias join them after wintering over inside once again. All photos clickable to enlarge, as always.

 

My pink African violets are producing like crazy now.

Shade garden and beyond. That's an ancient pink azalea shrub, which almost resembles a laurel bush until it blooms.

Fun with Photoshop filters. Another shot of my beautiful (if I do say so myself, lol) purple violets. They're in a single indoor garden pot along with a second variety of purple and the pink seen in this post, too.

 

Looking slightly north this view includes the tiny road to town. In the distance is some Land Trust acreage and then a condominium.

Slightly longer view shows the fuzzy dark green foliage of this pink violet.

Poppin' Fresh (Up)

 

My violets are really going crazy these days. All three plants in this indoor garden are blooming, I'll take it out on the porch tomorrow and photograph the entire thing with good outdoor light.

 

Probably the last Daffodil arrangement this year. They were really beautiful and strong this year, though.

I think the back of flowers is just as interesting as the front...

 

This forsythia was heavily damaged in the last 25 inch snowfall. As soon as these meager, though pretty, blooms are finished, I'll prune the bush to the ground and let it come up fresh all summer. It should be perfect for next spring.

Pointing the camera towards the ground, the petals remain a solid look in the strong, late afternoon sun.

I have at least six varieties of ferns. They range from bright green to dark green, from frilly to thick, matter to shiny. They all love shade or "dappled" sunlight the best, though.

 

My mother's perennial Primrose has come up once again. It seems to be getting smaller each year, but what's left always makes me smile.

 

This variety of fern has a fuzzy frond when full grown. The late afternoon sun really gave them a golden hue.

My pink granite bird bath. I gave this to my mother for Mother's Day in the mid 1980s and I've moved it to wherever I live. This is the same type and color of granite as my ancestral family's granite quarry in Leete's Island, Guilford, Connecticut. Our quarry furnished much of the granite for the base of the Statue of Liberty.

 

 Blooming valiantly on broken stems. Next year will be their year!

My grandmother brought this ornamental Ribbon grass to the shoreline area in the 1930s. I believe she sent away for it from a western company. It grows perfectly almost anywhere and I always bring it with me. I have a couple of dozen clumps of these around Pink Gardens now. This one is only a few inches tall right now. They'll get to about two feet with four foot tall "wheats."

This is a giant fern. My friend Mary gave several of them to me a few years ago. They grow to about three feet tall and have dark fronds with a sheen to them.

A slightly longer view of my violet garden. The pink plant can be seen peeking from behind, and there is a second purple plant. The flowers are slightly lighter and smaller then this one.

 Rescued from the woods, Solomon Seals just began to pop up from the ground this season.

One of the three white Triliums I found under some wild rose bushes last year, I transplant them to the shade garden right next to the granite bird bath. I planted three last summer and now I have four! They've only broken ground in the past two weeks and are about four-inches tall. They should get another foot taller and will have beautiful white flowers.

 

Last But Not Least

 

The vegetable garden this afternoon. I've established perennial gardens all around the perimeter of it. I have a few varieties of day lilies, iris, sedum, foxglove, rose campion, ribbon grass, cinquefoils, hosta, thistles, Solomon seals, jack-in-the-pulpits, and I'm sure a few more, lol. As each perennial finishes its cycle, I plant Marigold seeds so by fall it's full of tall orange flowers.

More Color Each Day!

Cherry blossoms in town, at dusk. I love them at this stage, with some flowers fully opened and others in various stages, from tight buds to almost-open. All photos clickable thumbnails to enlarge.

Another "low view" of Pink Gardens. These bi-color daffodils complement the colors of the house perfectly.

Our large forsythia was damaged in the last blizzard. It was completely flattened by the massive heavy snowfall. It has a few flowers on it, but I think I'm going to cut it all the way down to the ground and let it grow back up again. Forsythias need to be cut back every decade or so or they stop producing enough flowers to fill in all the branches.

I grew a marigold indoors this winter! I planted some seeds in one of my potted plants in December and just this week I had my first bloom. I was so surprised it actually blossomed indoors!

 

This rusty-colored plant is actually my purple tradescanthia. It's an outdoors annual, but for the past four years, every October I cut several stems off of it and them root them in water for the next spring. Once they're outside and in the sunlight again, these reddish-green leaves will turn to purple and throw off small pink flowers.

A second African Violet has bloomed, my deep purple one. This plant is ten years old and the plant stretches almost fourteen inches wide!

And Thus the Season Begins. . .

This is the first year I've had miniature Daffodils in my yard! I placed the camera right on the ground for this photo. Though the perspective makes them look large, they are only 4-inches high! My friend, Lisa Mikulski, gave me these bulbs last year just before she moved to Sweden. Although she may be thousands of miles away, her flowers are going to be in my garden for years to come!

 

I think the aroma of hyacinths is among the best in all of flowerland! I love the scent of roses and lilacs, and virtually every flower, but there is something about Hyacinths that is just pure sweetness without any overtones of anything else. My friend Nikki gave me these bulbs a few years ago and they're just about the first flowers to ever bloom in the spring.

 

I think I posted almost exactly the same photo last year, lol, but it's a sure sign of spring when the turtles emerge from their winter rest and start sunning themselves at Tuxis Pond again!

Yes, my African Violets are indoor plants, but they are just beginning to bloom again from their winter greenery. This bright magenta one has huge blossoms. Each is more than an inch-and-a-half wide. The other two plants in this violet garden are about to bloom, one of them for the very first time, so stay tuned for more photos in the weeks to come!

Bonus Photo

 

On a wall near my violets hangs this self-portrait from 1983. It's cut paper, pen, and Saran wrap. Hard to believe it's 30 years old this year.

AutumnColour Continues

 

Behold the only purple-and-white dahlia that blossomed this year! It came out two or three days before our frost, so there won't be anymore. Too bad. I would have loved to have lots of these to photograph and enjoy. I've been under the weather for the past week or so. I apologize for the dearth of photos and posts recently!

 

An obligatory photo of typical New England fall foliage! The leaves are all blowing off the trees now. It was a very short colorful season, but much better than last year when the leaves came off in September due to Tropical Storm Irene.

These hydrangeas have turned an absolutely gorgeous shade of raspberry this autumn!

My yellow Butterfly bush still has a few pretty blooms on it. Since I planted it in July, this bush has tripled in width but hasn't gotten much taller. I'm very interested to see how it grows next year in a full season.

That same purple-and-white dahlia in an small arrangement with peach and yellow dahlias around it. A 1:43 scale model of a red '55 Cadillac Eldorado peeks out from behind the flowers...

My African violet garden hanging out on the porch for some fresh fall air. The darker purple plant is more than fifteen inches wide!

New Beginnings, x5

Tinky Winky's new beginning has put a smile on his face 

Tinky Winky, the "gay" Teletubby, lol, has come out from his longtime home in the guest room, to play in the light of the livingroom. My late mother bought him for me for my 40th birthday! He now prefers to sit next to my similar-colored violets, blooming more profusely as the days grow longer. For a bit of background on the Teletubbies, click here. "Uh, Oh!"

My flower gardens' new beginnings

Spring isn't quite here, and snow is in the forecast for Wednesday, but I've cleaned off several flower gardens of their fall leaves and winter detritus. This tiny Feverfew will grow to 3-feet tall, with hundreds of tiny white daisy-like flowers.

My chive pot is going on 25 years old this year. It has been backed into a couple of times, and hit with the snow plow, but is really none-the-worse for wear. I might sand it and give it a new paint job later this spring. I use these chives all season long, in almost everything I cook.

Tiny daffodils are just beginning to show their heads.

The "dead tree" garden's Myrtle, or Periwinkle, in front of Pink Gardens, is really spreading nicely at the base on all sides. This garden is nicely naturalized with several varieties of day lilies, iris, daisies, fox gloves, rose campion, tulips, sedum, and several other perennials.

Young day lilies, iris and Feverfew sprouting.

My culinary new beginnings

My great friend Mary surprised me with these lovely "bleue" eggs the other day when she came over. They are cage-free and organic and absolutely fresh, and besides the very artistic packaging, the eggs were various shades of teal and light blue. For the story of Platine Bleue heirloom eggs, click here!

I wanted to "experience" these special eggs as much as I could, so I used them in three great dishes. First I made a very European omelette with two of them, adding Gruyere cheese, mushrooms, scallions and a tiny amount of truffle oil. Ooh-la-la! Next I hard-boiled two of them, and made a very simple salad from them so I could really discern their flavor. I made a fresh olive oil mayonnaise (a LOT of hand beating; I used a "plain" egg for the mayo so I wouldn't waste a special one), and added a  few capers and a couple leaves of julienned tarragon to the mashed-up hard-boiled eggs. These blue-shelled eggs had very yellow yolks, so the egg salad was vibrantly colored. Very Hamptons! Lastly, I made my favorite simple egg dish, scrambled eggs. I used a spare amount of grated Vermont cheddar, again I wanted to make sure the eggs were the "star" of the dish, sea salt and freshly ground "rainbow" peppercorns, and made Pumpernickel toast on the side. I don't think I've ever enjoyed eggs as much as I did these Platine Bleues! A huge thanks to Mary!

My photoshopped cars' new beginnings, new home

I've begun a second blog, "artandcolourcars" just for my fake cars. I started it a few weeks ago, and have kept it very low-key, though the hits have started climbing in the last week. I will be posting my cars there as I finish them, creating a virtual parking lot as it were for my creations. Please stop by if you've enjoyed my cars in the past. Above is my "proper" 2012 Dodge Charger, the 2-door coupe with flying buttressed C pillars. Link to artandcolourcars here.

My personal new beginning

I've very recently been "discovered" and I didn't even have to sit at Schwab's Hollywood soda counter in a tight sweater—good thing actually, lol, for everyone involved! My car art, which Peter De Lorenzo has been kind enough to run on his Autoextremist site several times in the past few years, has caught the eye of Automobile magazine in Ann Arbor. I'm now working on my second assignment for them, which will be published in the June issue of their magazine. This is my first print magazine publishing credit for my photoshopped cars, and I couldn't be happier. It has been a dream of mine, forever, to have my car art published in a car magazine, but I had given it up a long time ago, along with several other dreams. Well, it's about to come true, and I hope everyone out there that enjoys "my" cars rushes out and buys the June issue of Automobile which is on sale in early May!

A big hello to everyone, and see you next month.

Diamond-dusted Violets

Happy Winter Solstice!

Yesterday's morning sun highlighted these african violet petals' unique texture, making them appear as if coated with a diamond glaze. Click on photo to enlarge,

First Purple of the Winter

After almost six months of dormancy, my african violets are beginning to bloom again. I have six violets planted together in one large pot; this is the second variety to flower, a pink version flowering last month. I have buds on three others right now. I lost one of these violets last summer, but another one divided shooting off a baby, so I still have the same number. These plants constantly try to get out of their pot, growing outwards, and two of them are actually hanging down the side in a very cool way, almost like a large plant-like "brooch."