P52 - Week #29

Generally, I photograph many flowers during spring and summer; for my P52 project, however, I try to  limit the number.  It would be easy to turn it into a flower photo series.  Peonies are my favorites, but their season is so short.  I'm really appreciative of the late summer flowers in our yard.  Black eyed Susans (rudbeckia) and coneflowers (echinacea) are fairly plentiful and they last for a long, colorful time.  I have only one white coneflower plant, for some reason, but it has beautiful blooms.

Elephants and Flowers ... and Week #12 of P52

No more snow photos for the time being!  We went west for almost a week and returned to find actual bare ground!  There are snow drifts here and there (especially at the front of our house, which faces north and which is the recipient of snow from the snowblower).   In my last post, I said I would find something on the west side of the state to photograph, and I did.

First:  Week 12 of P52...   We went to the zoo!  I wish I could tell which female elephant this is, but I can't.  I did photograph Chendra, another female who was a rescue from Malaysia.  Her right eye is missing, making her easy to identify.  I will post other zoo photos later.

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Second: Although it wasn't really warm in Hillsboro, there was sunshine the first and third days. Trees were starting to flower and the nearby park's camellias were opening, too.  I even visited another park to capture some magnolias. When we return in two weeks, hopefully there will be more to photograph.

I'm thinking late spring....

For a change from winter and landscapes, I've chosen my favorite flower...the peony.  My late mother had a huge peony garden and I have at least 25 of my own plants.  This particular flower came for Christmas in an order that didn't work well--the freeway in this side of Oregon was closed for two days and the peonies sat in the cold in a FedEx location just an hour and a half from my home.  (I'm getting a replacement order when the weather is warmer.)  The background is the lid for a tea crate that I found at one of my favorite little "everything" shops.

Sunflower Stages

There are other phases in a sunflower's life, but I've captured a few.  When they truly go to seed, they are also fascinating...but that will be later.

Delightful Dahlias

One of my nieces is a Biology major who is also flower-crazy!  She plants bunches of bulbs, and is especially enamored of dahlias.  (I grow them as annuals, because I don't want to deal with lifting bulbs in the fall and keeping them protected all winter!)  She fudged on the bloom time by first planting in a greenhouse and transplanting the plants.  My dahlias haven't even budded, but hers are blooming.  On a recent visit to her flowers, I snapped some photos with my phone.