Category Archives: Our Garden

Images taken in our Pennsylvania garden

More Fall Colors in Heatherwood

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Akebono Cherry, Fingerling Japanese Maple, Yukimi & Kotoji Lantern
Heatherwood Japanese Garden

I was sitting in my office doing a little work and looked out the window. The morning light covered the garden outside my window. The heck with work … I grabbed my camera and started playing in the soft light. The color was amazing, I moved from one position to another searching for little vignettes. Three hours later, my creative juices stopped flowing. I had covered less than one-third of the garden. Well, there is always tomorrow morning to do some additional exploring.

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Beautiful Day!

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Woodland Edge
Heatherwood Autumn

Fall color abounds in Heatherwood on a beautiful autumn day. Just six years ago this was just a pasture with only the background birches. It is amazing how fast nature takes hold. We are pretty much finished with the design in this woodland area. Next year we will focus on another corner of the garden.

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Looking Up to the Northeast

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Dogwoods and Selah Bluff
Heatherwood Autumn

A planting bed of grasses and deciduous shrubs separate Heatherwood from our neighbor’s back yard. As we were designing the lower part of our garden area, we reviewed our concepts with our neighbors. We wanted to make sure that what we planted did not distract from their view of the bluff looking over our yards. This is their view from their back yard looking northeast up toward the surrounding hills. We both think the design has worked out!

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Fall Color in the Meadow

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Fall Grasses and Perennials
Heatherwood Meadow

How fast the fall colors are changing. It is difficult keeping up with the daily changes in the garden. The garden seems to be a little mixed up this fall. Some plants seem to be peaking earlier than normal while others seem to be lagging behind. Right now, the meadow seems to be in its peak fall glory. The grasses are golden with a remaining hint of summer green. The sedums have turned into their autumn gold and orange. The asters are in full bloom with their showy bright purple coat. Most of the perennials have faded in color, but have interesting spent blooms full of seeds for the birds. Every once in a while a bright new bloom pops up like those of the red hot pokers. Throughout the garden the red twig dogwoods are displaying their bright red, yellow, and orange fall foliage. Every day is a treat!

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Watching Over the Water

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Viridis Japanese Maple
Heatherwood Early Fall

Our green Viridis maple is changing to its fall orange as it patiently watches over our garden waterfall. Each year it extends further toward the falling water. The combination of the flowing water and the flowing branches of the Viridis is one of my favorite scenes I keep coming back to.

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Let Your Imagination Loose

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Waterfall Abstract
Heatherwood Japanese Garden

Sitting by the waterfall, I continued to play with long exposures. I was looking for interesting vignettes that I could isolate with my telephoto lens. I created several images of this rock with the water flowing around its edges. By itself, it was interesting but not eye stopping. Later when reviewing my images of the morning’s session, something caught my eye. I squinted and saw a face with long white hair sweeping down along each side. The more I looked at it, the more my imagination wandered.

Can you see it ???

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What to Do When You Get Into a Rut

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Waterfall Abstract
Heatherwood Japanese Garden

I was sitting by our pond having a morning cup of coffee with Mary. I had my camera in my lap and was looking up at our little waterfall. I have taken hundreds of images of the waterfall from every angle that I can think of. What could I do to create something different? I was working with long exposures and my hand slipped. I was getting ready to delete the image, when I thought maybe I could play around with a little in-camera motion. After a few tries, this is what I came up with.

Lesson learned: Stop, take the time to play. Something good usually comes out of it!

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Summer’s Passing

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Rudbeckia and Brandywine Viburnums
Heatherwood, Early Autumn

As summer transitions into fall, the rudbeckias fade and the berries of the Brandywine viburnum’s break out with their pink berries. I don’t have the heart to cut down the spent rudbeckia blossoms. I leave them for the birds to feed on the seeds. The fallen seeds spread throughout the garden to create new plants in the spring. We have plenty of of volunteers if anyone would like to transplant them.

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Summer Color

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Color in the Meadow
Heatherwood Summer

The hot temperatures are back, hovering around 100 degrees. The perennials in the meadow are displaying their bright summer colors. The high heat cause blooms to fade fast, but new growth and color continue to emerge. During these hot times, the best time to be in the garden is before 8:00 am and after 8:00 pm. These are great times for morning coffee and evening refreshments.

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Respite from the Heat

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Yukimi and Waterfall
Heatherwood Japanese Garden

During these hot summer days with the temperature in the high 90’s to mid 100’s, Heatherwood’s pond and waterfalls cool things down. The sight and flow of water creates a feeling of coolness even though the temperature is hovering around 100 degrees. This vignette was created while I was sitting comfortably in one of our Adirondack chairs overlooking the pond and waterfalls. I know that one typically does not see an Adirondack chair in a Japanese garden. We have chosen to mix a couple of cultures to provide a comfortable place to relax and enjoy nature.

This sitting area is a works-in-progress. It is shaded from the east and south but is relatively open to the afternoon sun from the west. We have planted Japanese maples, a Japanese pagoda tree, and an akebono cherry on the west to help enclose the seating area. This year we planted a honey locust tree to finish the enclosure. Now we just need to wait until the trees get a little taller to provide a 270 degree protected room with an open view of the waterfall and pond to the north.

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