Category: Flora

A trio of violets

A trio of violets blooming in early spring.
A line-up of early spring violets.
A trio of violets: Pretty maids all in a row.

While walking the pups this morning this trio of violets caught my eye. They reminded me of the nursery rhyme: Silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row. In another part of this bed was a group of snow drops that could be the silver bells. Maybe the leaves could be called cockle shells…or maybe I’m trying to hard to make it fit. Regardless, the violets looked fresh and charming in the morning light filtering through the clouds.

A trio of snow drops.
Silver bells?

This neighbor has a wonder-filled yard. In my mind I call her the “sane rose lady”, because her special love is roses. She has what I believe is called a “cottage garden” it appears to be pure chaos, but it’s controlled chaos. In a few conversations with her I have come to realize that she knows the name of every plant and nurtures them assiduously. Her plot is full of beauty and charm, year around. Walking by always brings me a smile.

For Mama Cormier’s Thursday Trios and Cee’s Flower of the Day.

As usual, I took the photos with my Sony RX10iv camera and used Raw Therapee and the GIMP to process the photos. My workflow is described in this post.

Blossoms emerging

Pink plum blossoms starting to emerge.

Some early blossoms emerging. These ornamental plum blossoms are the first fully blooming ones I’ve seen this year.They emerge at different times from year to year, so I hypothesize that they are triggered by temperatures more than hours of light. But it could be some combination. Hopefully they won’t be nipped in the bud by a sudden cold snap.

Plum blossoms emerging.
First out of the gate.
The first blossoms for this year.
Plum blossoms emerging.

For Wordless Wednesday and Cee’s Flower of the Day.

The photos were taken with my Sony RX10iv camera, F/4 and ISO 100. I used Raw Therapee, the radiance filter in Topaz Studio 2 and the GIMP to process these photos. My basic workflow.

Affiliate link for Topaz Labs software.