‘Blue Beauty’ Water Lily

'Blue Beauty' Tropical Water Lily

‘Blue Beauty’ Water Lily

The ‘Blue Beauty’ Water Lily is one of the more popular water lilies. It is a hybrid developed in 1896 when hybrid studies were just being undertaken. Originally called ‘Nymphaea pulcherrima’, a pseudo-Latin name translated as “beautiful water-lily,” its name was changed to ‘Blue Beauty’ in the 1930s.

I love the bluish-lilac color, but even more I love the blue-gray, two-toned shadows of the two lilies. This is one of those photographs where I think the shadow as interesting as the subject. The lilies that stand above the water — this one grows 6″ to 8″ above the surface of the pond — seem to cast rather impressionistic, moody shadows on the barely rippling pond surface.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. While at the Chicago Botanic Garden Art Festival, she paid a morning visit to the tropical water-lily ponds. What a wonderful collection!


Weekend Show – Seeded Earth Studio at Chicago Botanic Garden Art Festival

Tall Stem Poppy

Tall Stem Poppy © 2011 Bo Mackison

Here is one more photo of this gorgeously pink poppy, my favorite flower from this spring.  The soft pink colors combined with a hint of purple, and the bonus raindrops, made this a flower any botanical photographer would love to study and photograph. And I did both.

This weekend I will be at the 1st Annual Chicago Botanic Garden Art Festival in Glencoe, Illinois, an art show organized by Amdur Productions of Highland Park in association with the Botanic Garden. This photograph will be one of the many flower and garden photos in the Seeded Earth Studio booth.

I can think of no better place to display my garden photo gallery than in this magnificent botanical garden.

The art fair will be held on the Esplanade from Friday July 1 through Sunday July 3 — 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. The 80 artists in the Chicago Botanic Garden Art Fair will exhibit art that is in some way related to a botanical theme. This promises to be a one of a kind summer art fair.

If you visit the art festival, please come visit my booth, #24. I will be presenting a booth chat about photography at 11 a.m. on Saturday, July 2. Hope to see you there.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is looking forward to this weekend’s art fair set in the midst of the Chicago Botanic Gardens–a tiny piece of heaven on earth.

‘Loraine Sunshine’

'Loraine Sunshine' False Sunflower

‘Loraine Sunshine’ False Sunflower © 2011 Bo Mackison

I always thought this flower in my garden was a sunflower. Now I find out, while doing a bit of research for blog writing, that it is not a true sunflower, but a false sunflower. It is a good thing a flower’s beauty is not in its name, but in its looks. Botanically speaking, a sunflower has green leaves, while this flower has green and white variegated leaves. Hence the false label.

'Loraine Sunshine' Variegated Foliage

Variegated © 2011 Bo Mackison

It is a ‘Loraine Sunshine’ heliopsis and when I was in the nursery picking out replacement stock for a few spaces in my garden, one of the reasons I chose this flower was because of its deep yellow color. A second reason was because of its unusual foliage.

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Bo Mackison is a photographer and the owner of Seeded Earth Studio LLC. She is enjoying the backyard garden this year, especially since plentiful rains are keeping everything green and growing.

Sitting on a Blue Bench Amidst Powder Puff Magnolias

"Powder Puff" Loebner Magnolia, Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin II

“Powder Puff” Magnolia © 2011 Bo Mackison

Ask yourself, “Why am I seeing and feeling this? How am I growing? What am I learning?” Remember, every coincidence is potentially meaningful. How high your awareness level is determines how much meaning you get from your world. ~  Ansel Adams

On my visit to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison early this week, it was a pleasure to see so many of the trees and plants in bloom. I let my imagination soar a bit while I was sitting on a bright blue bench, taking in the blooming beauty of a nearby magnolia tree. (If you follow my blog, you may recall I try to take at least 10 minutes out of each shooting hour to sit and capture the atmosphere in my body and mind, not only with my lens.)

I think it is making me a more aware photographer, perhaps it will eventually make me a better photographer. But today, this quiet time interludes give me many gifts not associated with photography at all.

Perhaps it is a plot, I thought as I sat quietly — a benevolent plot arranged by nature to cheer the many humans who are running around on this planet feeling over-worked, overwhelmed, unfulfilled. Those who are thinking, hopelessly, “I will never reach my goals, I will never find true happiness.”

Perhaps for the last month–this record-breaking cloudy, cool April–nature held back her beauty, anticipating a great unveiling. For it does seem that many of the flowers–whole gardens of flowers–popped open, bloomed, spilled their bright colors, all timed perfectly.

One week it was cloudy, rainy, icy. And then–poof–it was spring.

As I sat on the bright blue bench (of which I have grown very fond–everyone should have a bright blue bench to sit upon) I watched two cardinals darting about the magnolia. I don’t recall ever seeing cardinals interacting in such a way before, but they were swooping into the dense flowers and swooping out again, circling the trees, up and down–like a game of follow the leader or a spontaneous dance. When they stopped to rest on a branch, they began a back and forth chirping contest, louder and louder, calls were startlingly clear, cheerful. I laughed to hear them, it was so spontaneously beautiful.

It was as  if the two cardinals were calling to everyone in the gardens–and there were many of us walking the garden paths. And they were saying,

“Here. Look. Here is this gift for you. Take this experience and hold on to it. Enjoy it now. Enjoy the sun casting colorful shadows on the pink magnolia blossoms. Enjoy the orange tulips nodding into the ir yellow neighbors. Enjoy the fresh air and the cheerful callings of the birds. Be open to the joy of these myriad gifts, take that joy home, and tuck it in your heart. Keep it safe. Then, when the clouds and storms return, pull out this memory, this sunny day feeling of the garden filled with glad tidings of spring, and be thankful.”

 

Dutchman’s Breeches

Dutchmans' Breeches, Ephemeral Wildflower in Owen Conservation Park, Madison, Wisconsin

Dutchman’s Breeches © 2011 Bo Mackison

I finally discovered a few ephemeral wildflowers in the woods near my home. These tiny white flowers, hanging on a bright red stem, look a bit like the britches worn by men, so the story goes. I do not personally know any man who would be caught dead wearing this type of white and yellow breeches, but then again, the names of many wildflowers show a lot of creativity on the part of the people who named them.

The ephemerals–early spring flowers that bloom on the woodland floor before the trees leaf out and shade the ground–are finally blooming. I saw only bloodroot a week ago when I walked the forest trails. On my last walk in the woods, two days ago, quite a few other species were in bloom–hepatica, violets, and Dutchman’s breeches were in abundance.

Nice to see the earth coming alive with greenery and flowers.

The spring flowers are blooming and the sun is finally shining after the last days of April faded into May. Last month went on record as the cloudiest April in Wisconsin since the late 1800s.