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Saturday, June 29, 2013

Today's Flowers and Weekend Flowers: Home and Office


 My first rose of sharon of the season (bush type of hibiscus) are blooming.
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The yellow roses below are blooming at my office.
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I used to have a similar yellow rose bush at home but it died after many years of beautiful blooms.
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Below is a mix of pansies at my office.
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One more office flowers shot below.
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The rest of the shots are ones I took at home.
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I love the way rudbeckia look when they first form.
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It looks like the petals are hugging the center.
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More and more of my coneflowers (echinacea) are blooming.
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Friday, June 28, 2013

Photohunters: With what do you like to travel and citrus


To answer the question with what do you like to travel, I like to travel with a camera. To combine that theme with the citrus theme, I found a shot I took in Key West Florida with my first digital camera in 2002. I thought it was appropriate since FL has a lot of citrus growers. The quality of the shot is poor since my first digital camera was cheap and not very good but it's the only way I could think of combining the themes.
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Monday, June 24, 2013

Nature Notes: late June

Some of my coneflowers (echinacea) are starting to form flowers.
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There are hundreds of bees (not sure what kind of bee the one below is) that are busy on my porcelain vine (Ampelopsis brevipenduculata).
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The American Robin was shaking off the water so hard that it looked like she had hair covering her eyes.
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The blackberry vines are beginning to form berries. They are growing through the porcelain vine so most of the visible leaves are from the porcelain vine.
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There are hundreds of bumblebees mixed in with the smaller bees.
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The bumblebees flit around amongst the different flowers.
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I have a lot of brown thrashers in my yard.
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The mourning dove pair were sharing a bird bath.
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The juvenile cardinal and american robin were sure about sharing.
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The carolina wren finally stayed still long enough for a photo.
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There are a bunch of juvenile cardinals this year.
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There were eight or so on my deck at the same time.
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I like how soft their feathers look after a bath.
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I like the dusky beaks on the juvenile females.
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I finally managed to get some shots when the bird baths were relatively clean.
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I love the way cardinals tilt their heads.
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Saturday, June 22, 2013

Today's Flowers and Weekend Flowers: Later part of June


I need to pull up the saplings that are surrounding my yarrow but I decided to take a picture first in case weeding around it damages the flowers.
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The rudbeckia or black-eyed-susan as we call it below is growing in a pot on my deck.
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The petunias below are growing in a pot in front of an office building.
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I zoomed in on the magnolia bloom high up in a tree.
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The gardenia below is much smaller than the magnolia blossom but they look similar in these shots.
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I like the way mimosa blooms look like pin cushions.
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The mimosa trees in my yard are all volunteers.
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The coriopsis is getting a little raggedy looking.
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I think the next gardenia blossom looks like it has rabbit ears.
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Last is one more mimosa shot.
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Friday, June 21, 2013

Photohunters: Daydream Sculptures


I have a tendency to daydream when I'm walking.
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I decided to combine the two theme by showing you sculptures at the NC Botanical Garden in Chapel Hill.
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I was daydreaming while walking through the garden taking pictures of the sculpture.
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Since these shots are from a number of different walks and years I can't tell you exactly what I was daydreaming about.
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Even if I could remember, I would probably not want to write about my daydreams anyway.
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The botanical garden has a lot of different sections to show the different habitats in North Carolina.
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Many of the sculptures are nestled in the wild parts of the garden.
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That's the reason these shots don't include many of the flower beds and other cultivated plants that are in the garden.
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The bee sculptures are almost scary enough to turn a daydream into a horror movie.
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The little boy in the bottom corner below almost looks like he's running away from the winged sculpture.
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