photography and musings from a Midwesterner
From the category archives:
Canopy Hike © 2010 Bo Mackison
Vancouver has great places to visit and great spaces to get lost in, too — like this canopy walk in the canopy of a forest in the University of British Columbia Botanical Gardens. It’s quite the experience, walking near the tops of the trees.
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Diablo Lake in North Cascades National Park © 2010 Bo Mackison
We took an unexpected side trip to the Cascades. As we were driving from Seattle to Vancouver, we saw the Cascades Highway and had to go check out the National Park. We ended up spending the night, getting a bit away from our planned trip. That just makes the trip that much more of an adventure, that much more fun!
And our family collects visits to the National Parks and Monuments the way other families collect coupons.
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Red Clematis © 2010 Bo Mackison
This particular clematis is growing on my mailbox. At least, it had its beginning at the base of my mailbox. We have had such remarkable growing weather, the clematis has grown so tall that its tendrils have grasped the maple tree that hovers above it, and is now climbing, ever upward, along the branch of the maple.
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Visitor © 2010 Bo Mackison
Bee pollinating pink cosmos. Allen Centennial Gardens, Madison Wisconsin.
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Composition in Rock Garden © 2010 Bo Mackison
Macro-photograph of Hens and Chicks in the Rock Garden at Allen Centennial Gardens at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
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Prickly Pear Cactus Rose © 2010 Bo Mackison
The prickly pear cactus is in bloom…in Wisconsin. This cactus rose was photographed at Allen Centennial Gardens on the University of Wisconsin- Madison campus.
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Ecstacy © 2010 Bo Mackison
Our peony season in Madison has been over for a week, the victim of torrential downpours which soaked the flowers and sent them drooping onto the garden’s earth. So when we took a visit to Racine for a Frank Lloyd Wright Tour this weekend, I was happy to see peonies in full bloom. Lake effect. We were only a mile inland from Lake Michigan and spring was later in coming. The peonies were at their peak.
As we headed up a driveway to one of the homes on the tour, I noticed this peony plant. Each flower was pure white save for a tear-shaped streak of deep pink and a single petal with pink edging. I hadn’t planned on doing any macro photography – not on an architectural tour – but luckily my lenses were in the car. Sherpa was hurrying me more than usual, as the skies were graying and raindrops were splashing around us. But I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to capture this white peony with the unusual pink markings. So we went back to the car for the right equipment and I studied the peonies.
Fifty shots later, and we were back on the tour. But I’m glad I stopped to smell the roses…wait, wrong saying.
Glad I stopped to photograph the peony.
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Inner Sanctum © 2010 Bo Mackison
Palest of color gradations, a close look at petals of the tulip flower. Photographed at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin.
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Downy Pagoda Plant © 2010 Bo Mackison
Another wildflower that I photographed on my brief foray to Missouri. This is Blephilia ciliata, commonly known by a variety of names — Ohio horsemint, Downy Pagoda Plant, Downy Woodmint. It is a Missouri native perennial which grows in dry open woods and thickets, clearings, fields and roadsides in the eastern two thirds of the State.
It is a member of the mint family, and while aromatic, it is not as strong as most mints I’ve come across in the more northern climes. It appears to be attractive to butterflies and bees, at least it was in the wildflower garden at Shaw Nature Reserve.
The flowers are blue to purple and bloom from May through September. The plant grow in a circular column, sometimes having as many as six or seven pagodas full of flowers. The larger ones seem to outgrow themselves, and a few were tipped over with the weight of the hundreds of blossoms.
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