Tree Fuchsia

I really love the clusters of pink flowers that fill this plant for most of the spring and summer months. I bought it on a whim not knowing what kind of habitat it needed. Much to the plant's chagrin, I planted it in direct, all day sun. It's taken a few years and a lot of water but this year it seems to be very happy with its home.

Camera Tricks: Magnifying Lens Filter

If you've read this blog before you'd know that I like taking photos. I like taking photos of my two crazy dogs, but I really like taking photos of flowers. I think flowers are incredible samples of nature. I mean what's better than a glossy orange tulip or a feathery pink hibiscus? Not too much.

Moving to California has brought a whole new set of flowers into my vocabulary. I don't stop at azalea and iris anymore. Now I can talk about bougainvillea and angel's trumpet. I head out in the garden at some point every day and today I fixed on fuzzy, yellow kangaroo paw.

This image was taken at the maximum focal length of my 55mm lens. I can get close and with a crop I could remove a lot of the background "noise" but then the final size of the photo would be smaller.

Enter the magnifying lens filter.

With an 8x magnifying lens filter and my focal length set to the same 55mm, I can get so up this flower's nose it's not even funny. As you can see a lot of the background has been left out and what's left is a sharply focused flower and shorter focal depth. I think I'll have to get a couple more lens filters because I can have lots of camera fun for about 10 bucks!

Cactus Hill

This slope has started to erode and before it fully disappears and part of our patio cracks off and slides down the hill we thought we'd better put in some plants. The dogs use this hill as a main highway to get up and down the yard quickly. (Those steps are just too burdensome!) So we felt we needed to get some hearty, drought-tolerant vegetation to help hold the hillside together. Here's what we chose:

We decided on a variety of colors and textures. The flats on the right break up into lots of small-rooted plants. This is a succulent ground cover that will eventually fill in and produce a blanket of shimmering pale green foliage with little purple flowers. Then we chose different, fun looking succulents to scatter around the hill. Some have yellowish undertones and some have redish-brown, some are smooth and some are furry. Oh, and the giant one on the left, his name is Big Spikey. He's the favorite. We also got a pink and white bougainvillea to climb along the fence edge to give pretty backdrop.

It doesn't look like much right now, but I can't wait for it to fill in with growth. In the meantime, we are attempting to keep Henry and Lola off the hill so everything can establish without trampling.

Oh, Henry! You're so adorable, I missed you so much

That's what I was saying when I took this photo.

Henry was saying something more along the lines of... "I really don't like your new camera, it bugs me. And, why haven't you cut my bangs so I can really glare at you while I pose for this photo that I am only posing for because you haven't been here to take annoying pictures of me. I missed you, too!"