Category Archives: Landscape Photography

Winter Beauty – 6

“Stick Trees”
Heatherwood Winter

Sometimes beauty is in simple peace. This is the feeling that I had as I stood at the entrance to the center circle planting area of our lower garden. The simple forms of the grasses aligning the path and the background trees in our and our neighbor’s gardens beckoned me to walk in and enjoy the peaceful setting.

Here’s the story behind the image’s title, “Stick Trees.” A very close friend of ours had spent all her early years in the Northwest where the natural vegetation is an abundance of tall beautiful evergreens. She got married and the first thing she and her husband did was to move to a woodland area in New Jersey in the middle of winter. When they arrived, she was very disappointed as she exclaimed that their woodland area was only “stick trees”. They did not stay there very long and soon moved back to Seattle and the tall evergreens, where they have happily lived ever after.

Whenever I see a grouping of deciduous trees without their leaves, I think of her.

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Winter Beauty – 5

“Cherry Allee Edge”
Heatherwood Winter

As I look down the edge of the Cherry Allee, I see the red of the cherry tree bark contrasting with the yellow bark of the yellow twig dogwoods. In the summer the leaves of the dogwoods extend up to the lower branches of the cherries. In a couple of years foliage of the trees and shrubs will form a natural wall framing the sides of the perennial plantings. As the cherry trees mature, they will form an archway over the center plantings.

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Winter Beauty – 4

“Foggy Sunrise”
Heatherwood Winter

Fog and early morning sunlight create a wonderful ethereal scene. Layers of fog and low lying clouds cover the valley below our home. The distant hills provide a dark hazy background silhouette in the middle. More low lying clouds obscure the Selah-Yakima gap and additional cloud layers cover the morning sky. Winter sunrises and sunsets are a special gift to start and end a day.

Many may think that the above image could be an abstract painting. It is not. The image is straight from my camera with only a very small amount of contrast added. Magic happens!

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Winter Beauty – 1

“Meadow Grasses”
Heatherwood Winter

During the next several posts, I will present various images of Heatherwood’s winter beauty. Even on a cloudy dreary day the contrasts of the golden grasses against the snow and dark background trees and foreground spent perennials create a beauty of their own.

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Spring Snow

“Daffodils”
Heatherwood Spring

We have had snow on the ground since Christmas. I am ready for a little spring snow created by a drift of daffodils. We have enjoyed the beauty of the snow covered garden, but are anxious to get back to gardening activities. There are bushes to prune, grasses to cut, perennials to trim back, and beds to prepare as we get ready for the spring planting season. We have a little over one month left before we start. In the mean time we are selecting new plants and planning our spring projects. Spring will be here before we know. Now it’s time to get back to enjoying the quiet beauty of winter.

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All Good Things Must Come to an End

“Selah-Naches Irrigation Flume”
Heatherwood View

After 129 years of use, the last section of our historic irrigation flume is being replaced by a modern pipeline. Today, this section was demolished. It was so sad to see it come down. To pay it a little tribute, I post-processed the image to give a little historic antique look. Memories!!!

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Bird Food

Rudbeckia and Grasses”
Heatherwood Winter

Birds love our winter garden. We enjoy watching them flying in and out of the meadow and into the crabapples feeding on seeds and fruit. Several of our blue spruces act as winter homes. We have noticed more birds this year than in prior years. As Heatherwood matures, we hope that the garden will become a little sanctuary for various bird species.

We leave the garden’s spent vegetation in place during the winter, not only for a food source for birds but also for its winter interest. How dull the garden would look if all the perennials were to be neatly cut back in the fall. We will save the neat look until the spring.

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Something a Little Different

“Patio Rock Garden in Infrared”
Heatherwood Summer

I needed a little change, so I thought I would post an infrared image of our summer garden. This image is of our new rock garden planted during the spring of 2021. By early summer, the plants had taken hold and started blooming. It will take a couple of years for this area to catch up with our rock garden and meadow planting areas.

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