Category Archives: Our Garden

Images taken in our Pennsylvania garden

Monet’s Interpretation

Leave a reply

“The Meadow”
Heatherwood Summer

We just finished carving out and planting a new meadow in the lower section of Heatherwood. The colors are already bursting out for its first summer season. Reds, purples, yellows, blues, oranges, and all different shades of greens are scattered about. We have a lot of bark covered ground showing through most of the areas. It will take a few years for the perennials to fill in. We have patience and are enjoying the individual plants as each one breaks into bloom. Hopefully we will have a flow of changing color throughout the summer and early fall. This is just a start. We will record the activity of the meadow and adjust as we go along. It will also be a “Never Ending Journey.”

I created this image today. It was my first time out photographing since I had my foot operation. I’ve been hobbling around for the past three plus weeks. I still can’t put any weight on my foot, so I got a little creative and hopped on my lawn mower and drove around our new garden meadow. I stopped and recorded many images from above. Getting the best perspective and composition was very difficult, and sometimes impossible. But, I just had to get out with my camera. When I started processing the images, I noticed that they were all a little out of focus. I guess the high frequency vibration of the lawn mower didn’t help my unsteady hand. So, I decided to cheat a little and convert the images into a blurred impressionistic versions. Thank you Topaz!

Related Images:

200507_LongExp_WtrFall__Kotoji 200506_LongExp_WtrFall_1

Isolation #2

Leave a reply

“Past, Present, & Future”
Cherokee Dogwood
Heatherwood Autumn

This is another example of “Isolation.” My mission for this photo excursion was to collect isolated macro images that represent the early autumn of our Japanese Garden. I am in the process of preparing annual image collections of how our Heatherwood Garden changes from season to season throughout the year. For this specific photo shoot, I walked around the Garden and tried to collect compelling images that would represent the details of our autumn garden.

The uniqueness of this image is that is illustrates the yearly life cycle of a dogwood tree bloom. The yellow protrusions are the remnants of the spring blossom sepals; the leaves are turning to their autumn color before they fall for the winter; the red berry is the fruit for the wintering birds, and the purplish bud is the future blossom for next spring. The dew drop adds additional interest while the tips and edges of the leaves draw the viewers eye to the subject.

Related Images:

200507_LongExp_WtrFall__Kotoji 200506_LongExp_WtrFall_1

Isolation

Leave a reply

“A Peek of the Kotoji”
Heatherwood Fall

I have recognized that I have recently fallen back on making nice snapshots versus compelling images. I tend to fall back into “ruts” from time to time. During this period of “social distancing” and my surgery recovery time, I am looking back on some lessons I have taken on-line from David DuChemin.

The focus on this image is “Isolation.” My exercise last fall was to isolate and enhance the subject and eliminate distractions. My target subject was the Kotoji. I walked around our Japanese Garden to first identify a perspective of the Kotoji that was different from the many that I had taken before. I collected images of a tightly cropped full Kotoji lantern, close-up of detailed Kotoji elements, the Kotoji with the foreground and background, etc. I then continued to walk around and tried to frame the Kotoji with other elements in the Japanese Garden. Finally I worked on creating a “peek” of the Kotoji through a background Japanese maple.

To focus on the subject, I set my focal point and exposed for the front edge of the lantern’s top. The lantern was framed with a void through the Japanese maple. I used a narrow depth of field to blur the maple tree leaves and branches. In post processing, I further blurred and darkened the surrounding leaves and branches to lead the viewers eye to the Kotoji.

This image is not one of my best, but it was an excellent learning experience to purposefully focus on creating a compelling image.

Related Images:

200507_LongExp_WtrFall__Kotoji 200506_LongExp_WtrFall_1

Dogwood

Leave a reply

Dogwood Bloom Against Japanese Maple
Heatherwood Spring

As I stroll along in our Heatherwood Garden, I always have a camera, at least my iPhone, with me. This Spring, our variegated dogwood only had a few blossoms and they were 7-8 feet from the ground. I looked around to see if I could get a good sky background, but all we had were grey nondescript clouds. I stood on my tip toes extended my arms and tilted the iPhone down just a bit to pick up the deep red of a Japanese Maple as a background. It pays to be tall.

I don’t have to go far for a photographic safari. Everything I need is in our back yard.

Related Images:

200507_LongExp_WtrFall__Kotoji 200506_LongExp_WtrFall_1

Shin Deshojo

Leave a reply

Shin Deshojo Japanese Maple
Heatherwood Japanese Garden

How fast things change. The initial color of the first emerging leaves of this Shin Deshojo is a light pinkish red. Within a week they had turned to this brilliant red. Now, a month later, the leaves are a greenish-red color. Soon they will be a medium green. And then in the fall, they will be a brilliant red again. What a wonderful show this little tree gives us over the year.

The different and changing colors of our 26 Japanese Maples consistently catch my eye. Every time I walk through the garden, I look for something different. It is easy to find.

Related Images:

200507_LongExp_WtrFall__Kotoji 200506_LongExp_WtrFall_1

Shapes, Textures, Tones & Patience

Leave a reply

“Hosta, Japanese Maple, & Ground Cover”
Fountainville, PA Garden

Tones, textures, and shapes all combine to provide vignettes of enjoyment for me. Simple things perk my interest. I first see the bright chartreuse of the hosta jump out at me. I stop, focus, and follow the lines and shapes of the leaves. I am drawn into the details. The dense and darker ground cover creates a base supporting the hosta leaves. I raise my eyes and see the small, delicate leaves of the Japanese Maple trickling down over the large hosta leaves protecting them from the bright sun. What a wonderful moment I experience just enjoying the simple beauty of a garden.

It took many years to create this vignette. First, we dug up a portion of our yard and added a good quanty of fill dirt and top soil to create a planting bed. We edged the bed with Pennsylvania blue stone to keep the dirt from flowing over to the grass and gravel walk way. Our first planting was a bed of petunias. They were beautiful but took a lot of maintenance to keep them looking neat. After a couple of years, we planted a Sango Kaku Japanese Maple on the corner of the bed. We planted several sun loving plants around the base of the maple and patiently waited until the maple created enough shade to plant shade-loving plants. We gradually pulled out and transplanted the sun-lovers and replaced them with hostas and other shade plants. Over the years the ground cover spread as the hostas grew. The bottom branches of the Sango Kaku flowed down to provide the shade the hosta needed. Fifteen years after we moved in, we had a beautiful bed with Japanese Maples at each end, medium sized shrubs in the middle, and all the ground covered with ground cover and shade-loving plants. Small vignettes were scattered all around.

Now on the other side of the country, we are starting over to develop a landscape that will have a similar feeling. Now we have small trees and shrubs and a lot of sun-loving plants. The areas between are covered with bark. We patiently will wait for nature to do its work to develop the mini environments to create vignettes like the one above. We celebrate the little things that make up the wonder of nature and life.

Related Images:

Framed In

Leave a reply

Flagstone Path in Japanese Garden
Heatherwood Spring

This is another one of the little views that we have in our garden. This is what we see as we walk along the flagstone path in the front of the house then turn the corner around the edge. A crab apple on our left and a Shishigashira Japanese Maple and a varigated dogwood on the right frame the view along the curving path. The view is full of color and texture through all the seasons of the year. In the early spring and late fall, the early morning sun breaks over the horizon just above the path.

Related Images:

200507_LongExp_WtrFall__Kotoji 200506_LongExp_WtrFall_1

Borrowed Scenery

Leave a reply

Chief Joseph and Selah Ridge
Heatherwood Spring

One of the design techniques in Japanese Gardens is to use a “borrowed” background to enhance the garden’s visual size. Here, we used the orchard and Selah Ridge to enhance the scene from this perspective. In the design process we layed out the path through the garden and the specific plantings to create these types of views. We tried to create multiple view points that would lend themselves to photographic interest.

Related Images:

200507_LongExp_WtrFall__Kotoji 200506_LongExp_WtrFall_1

Our Little “Get Away”

Leave a reply

“A Place of Peace and Quiet”
Heatherwood Spring

We are so lucky to be out in “the country”. Here we can create a place to relax and enjoy nature and the world around us. During our Covid 19 “Stay at Home” directive, I have not felt “cooped-up”. All I have to do is step outside into our garden’s little get away. It is so peaceful and quiet as it lightens my spirt to enjoy the peacefulness around me.

The Japanese Garden is in it’s infancy. We enjoy it now as it is, but also visualize how it will be when it matures. Until it does mature, we will slowly add plantings to fill the voids. My imagination runs wild as it explores the many alternatives we have. Sometimes I have a hard time sleeping at night as I dream about the many opportunities.

Related Images:

200507_LongExp_WtrFall__Kotoji 200506_LongExp_WtrFall_1

Color Emergence

Leave a reply

Acer palmatum dissectum ‘Veridis’ & Yukimi Lantern
Heatherwood Spring

How time flies by so very, very fast! It has been a week and a half since I posted my last photo of our spring bloom. Since then, all 26 of our Japanese Maples have emerged with their spring colors. Their spring emergence has been beautiful. They have gifted us with multiple shades of yellow, orange, light green, pink, red, and burgundy. But, how quickly they start to turn to their summer shades.

I was able to record most of the color during strolls through the garden with my iPhone. I hope to put together a little gallery of the various maples and how they evolve through the year.

Related Images:

200507_LongExp_WtrFall__Kotoji 200506_LongExp_WtrFall_1