The beautiful double rainbow late Saturday afternoon had faded, but I did see this on my way home.
Rainbow over Bass Rocks
The sky was so gorgeous I next stopped at Smith’s Cove to catch the end of the setting sun. The hues quickly changed from vivid yellow-orange to orange-violet-pink. 
Smith’s Cove East Gloucester
Click photos to view larger-more dramatic looking!
Native to Japan, the Yoshino cherry (Prunus x yedoensis) is cultivated extensively and is also found growing wild on plains and mountains countrywide. For more than ten centuries, and continuing with no less enthusiasm today, cherry blossom time has been cause for joyful celebration that is deeply integrated in the Japanese culture.
When cherry blossoms begin to fall heavily, the flurry of blossoms is called “cherry snowstorm.” The following is a traditional Japanese song that has been passed down for generations.
Sakura
Cherry blossoms, cherry blossoms
As far as you can see.
Across yayoi skies
Is it mist? Is it clouds?
Ah, the fragrance!
Let us go, Let us go and see!
To see a cherry blossom snowstorm:
In the Japanese language the cherry is called “sakura,” which is generally believed to be a corruption of the word “sukuya” (blooming). Poets and artists strive to express the loveliness of its flowers in words and artistry. Called the flower of flowers, when the Japanese use the word “hane” (flower) it has come to mean sakura, and no other flower. Since the Heian period “hanami” has referred to cherry blossom viewing; the term was used to describe cherry blossom parties in the Tale of Gengi. Aristocrats wrote poetry and sang songs under the flowering trees for celebratory flower viewing parties. The custom soon spread to the samurai society and by the Edo period, hanami was celebrated by all people.
The delicacy and transience of the cherry blossom have poignant and poetic appeal, providing themes for songs and poems since the earliest times. The motif of the five petal cherry blossoms is used extensively for decorative arts designs, including kimonos, works in enamel, pottery, and lacquer ware. Cherry tree wood is valued for its tight grain and is a lustrous reddish brown when polished. The wood is used to make furniture, trays, seals, checkerboards, and woodblocks for producing color wood block prints.
In modern times the advent of the cherry blossom season not only heralds the coming of spring, but is also the beginning of the new school year and the new fiscal year for businesses. Today families and friends gather under the blooms and celebrate with picnicking, drinking, and singing. The fleeting beauty of the blossoms, scattering just a few days after flowering, is a reminder to take time to appreciate life. In the evening when the sun goes down, viewing the pale-colored cherry blossoms silhouetted against the night sky is considered an added pleasure of the season.
The tradition of celebrating cherry blossom season began in the United States when, on Valentine’s Day in 1912, Tokyo mayor Yukio Okaki gave the city of Washington, D.C., 3,000 of twelve different varieties of cherry trees as an act of friendship. First Lady Helen Taft and the wife of the Japanese ambassador, Viscountess Chinda, planted the initial two of these first cherry trees in Potomac Park. Today cherry blossom festivals are celebrated annually not only in Wash- ington, D.C., but in Brooklyn, San Francisco, Seattle, and Macon, Georgia.
It is said that the true lover of cherry blossoms considers the season is at its height when the buds are little more than half open—for when the blossoms are fully opened there is already the intimation of their decline.
My neighbor’s stroller–so sweet–even more charming when she is strolling the neighborhood with her children. I love the vintage-look; she says it is at least thirty-plus years.
Quechee Gorge, Vermont, photographed two days before Hurricane Irene
Fujifilm x100 Provia
Fujifilm x100 Velvia
Fujifilm x100 Black and White Film Simulation
The snapshots were taken from the overlook at the Trap Door Bakery and Cafe, two days before Hurricane Irene reached New England, on August 27, 2011.
Same view: You Tube video from eringray37 shot on August 28, 2011.
Quickly posting as I am under several deadlines and determined to get all fully underway. I believe I mentioned that this past week, Lisa Smith and her Cape Ann TV After-the Beach Teen Video Club stopped by for a tour of my garden. Here’s a short clip, with a wonderful surprise visit by the friendly Question Mark butterfly, who very conveniently, stole the show.
The teens and Lisa did a great job and all very much enjoyed the beautiful creatures that flew in and out of our story. It is not easy to focus on tiny subjects using a heavy camera attached to a tripod. The full video of the garden tour and interview will air in the near future and we will keep you posted.
While snapping a photo of the divinely scented honeysuckle embowering the outside shower…
I spotted our first female Monarch butterfly of the season.
She’s arrived a bit earlier than usual this year, or more accurately, the milkweeds in our garden are slightly behind in blossoming time-Marsh Milkweed won’t bloom for another half-week and Common Milkweed won’t flower for another two weeks (both milkweed patches are growing nearby the shower enclosure). However, she did not have nectaring in mind.
Pausing at the emerging buds and foliage of the Marsh Milkweed, then to the Common Milkweed, then back to Marsh, and curling her abdomen to the underside, one by one she oviposited golden egg after golden egg.
Typically, she searches for the uppermost, freshly emerging foliage in which to deposit her eggs. Click the above photo to make it larger. The newly deposited egg, no larger than the size of a pinhead, is a visible pale yellow dot adjacent to her abdomen.
After ovipositing an egg on the Marsh Milkweed, she next deposited several on the Common.
Click the above photo. Five eggs are visible, two on the upper leaf of the plant to the left and three on the upper leaf of the plant to the right.
I never tire of watching butterflies, especially Monarchs, whether in our garden or further afield, and eagerly anticipate their arrival each year. Monarchs are particularly gratifying to observe and record because they are one of the larger butterflies that grace our region. Oftentimes when I am photographing a smaller butterfly such as a Summer Azure, with a mere one-inch wingspan, I don’t know what I have captured through the camera’s lens until returning to the computer to download and edit. Monarchs, with their big and bold wing patterning and approachableness (is that a word?) are a joy to photograph. Because of their extraordinary migration, I believe the Monarch butterflies are one of the natural wonders of the world. We are so blessed to live in a community that plays host to such great numbers. PLANT MILKWEED and you, too, will have Monarchs! I guarentee it!
Common Milkweed in full bloom at Good Harbor Beach this week.
Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) found along the shoreline grows in sandy soil and is exposed daily to windy seaside conditions. In these rough and tumble conditions it typically grows two- to two and a half -feet tall. Conversely, where in our garden it grows in fertile, friable soil and lives in a sheltered corner protected from wind, Common Milkweed often grows six to seven feet tall.
Walking along the boardwalk I often catch the sweet honey-hay fragrance of the Common Milkweed when in full bloom. Marsh Milkweed has little to no fragrance. Several Monarchs were seen while photographing this patch of milkweed.
Blooming along the pathway leading to the outdoor shower is the magnificent hummingbird attractant Torch Lily (Kniphofia uvaria) and bee magnet Helenium, commonly called Sneezeweed or Dog Tooth Daisy.
The foliage of the diminutive Mexican marigolds (Tagetes tenuifolia), commonly referred to by the Mexican people as “flowers of the dead,” bears a fabulous spicy citrus fragrance. Flowers and foliage are edible and add both a tangy color and taste. I grow it in a pot, keeping it sometimes near the shower and sometimes moving it to the dining area.
The female Monarch stayed the morning and I have not seen her since. Lucky us, though. I found fifteen eggs, without really trying too hard, and will now have lots of caterpillars and chyrsalids for upcoming butterfly programs!
End Note regarding Japanese honeysuckle: The variety discussed here is a purple-stemmed variant and I have seen it written as Lonicera japonica var. repens and Lonicera japonica ‘Purpurea.’ In our zone 6 garden, I have found it to be well-behaved, neither bearing fruit nor sending runners. I do not recommend planting in zones 7 and above. Lonicera ‘Purpurea is highly attractive to all manner of bees. As richly scented as the species, the blossoming time of L. ‘Purpurea’ lasts well over six weeks, equating weeks of showering while enwrapped in the spellbinding sweet scent of honeysuckle.
Lonicera japonica var. repens or Lonicera japonica ‘Purpurea’
Night street photography with Fujifilm x100, St. Peter’s Fiesta, Gloucester, Massachusetts.
Here’s to the Red (sort of), White, and Blue!
Sweetly Scented Rosa ‘Aloha’
Deliciously Fragrant Variegated Mock Orange (Philadelphus)
Native Blue Flag (Iris versicolor) with Aromatic Feverfew
Fabulous Ferris Wheel, Gloucester Waterfront, St. Peter’s Fiesta
Shutter 1/60, f 2.2, ISO 4000
Shutter 1/2, f 14.0, ISO 4000
Shutter 125, f 2.o, ISO 4000
Shutter 125, f 2.8, ISO 400
Shutter 125, f 2.2, ISO 4000
Shutter 125, f2.0, ISO 4000
Shutter 1/60, f 2.5, ISO 4000
Thanks to husband Tom for helping me overcome my fear of heights. I so wanted to see the city from the top of the ferris wheel–stunning, fabulously fun, and all too brief–I didn’t want the ride to end!
A dozen, or more, carved wooden heads, each unique, adorning the unions where posts meets lintel.
Thank you Good Morning Gloucester blog for posting the flyer for the Eastern Point Yacht Club Garden Tour. I am so wrapped up in work and would have missed it otherwise. I could only get away for the last several hours of the tour and did not get to see all. From what I did see, English cottage garden and English country manner is the dominant style, with a heavy reliance on plants originating from Europe and Asia. I am always on the look out for design inspiration, particularly a creative and natural use of native plants, however, all the gardens were lovely and beautifully maintained. Often put forth is the argument that older American homes need be planted with popular European and Asian plants in order to maintain historical accuracy. Many of the estates along Boston’s North Shore were built during the period of the late 1800’s through the first several decades of the 20th century, when in fact, a great passion for native plants and wildflowers, and their use in the landscape, developed amongst home owners and landscape professionals alike.
This beautifully growing and vigorous specimen of native Lonicera ‘Firecracker’ is a wonderful hummingbird magnet
European Copper Beech
I had planned to use my x100 for nearly everything–except butterflies and songbirds–what a pleasant surprise! Jpgs straight from the camera.
With an average wingspan of just under 1.5,” and because the butterfly was so well camouflaged in the leaf litter, the x100 struggled to focus, but I and it persevered and eventually got an acceptable identifying shot. This is a problem I have often encountered when photographing small butterflies on the wing, whether using my Canon DSLR or very fast Panasonic Lumix.
Common Ringlet (Coenonympha tullia) Shutter 200, Aperture f3/6, ISO 200
Question Mark (Polygonia interrogationis) Shutter 200, f3/2, ISO 400
Dear Gardening Friends, Think Spring! Come join the North Shore Garden Club for what promises to be a wonderful event. I will be there and available to answer questions about the butterfly garden. Hope to see you there! Warmest wishes, Kim
Tulipomania at Willowdale
An intoxicatingly fragrant sea of narcissus
Magnolia virginiana bud
Is there a tree more lovely in flower than the North American dogwood (Cornus florida)? Whether flowering with the classic white bracts, the stunning rubra bracts, or the less often seen pale, creamy rose-tinted bracts, our native dogwood never ceases to give pause for beauty given.
Cornus florida var. rubra
Cornus florida
At this time of year when traveling along southern New England roadways we are graced by the beauty of the dogwood, dotting sunny roadside borders where meets the woodland edge. The bracts and flowers emerge before the leaves, serving only to heighten their loveliness. The fresh beauty of the bract-clad boughs is offset by the impressionistic symphony of neighboring tree foliage unfurling, shimmering in hues of apple green, chartruese, moss, and lime peel.
Discouragingly, many dogwoods in our region are inflicted with the lethal dogwood anthracnose. I believe the problem is exacerbated by the vast majority of information regarding growing flowering dogwoods, which suggests planting in part shade, and does not differentiate between gardening in the north versus gardening in the Midwest or northern Florida for that matter. If one lives in warmer regions south of New England, yes, perhaps it is possible to grow a healthy C. florida in partial shade.
Dogwood anthracnose is caused by the aptly named fungus Discula destructiva. It will typically kill an untreated Cornus florida within two to three years. As we look to nature for an answer, the native flowering dogwoods growing in the fertile, moist, friable soil of the Northeastern woodlands, as understory trees, are the trees most affected by anthracnose. Cornus florida growing in an open, sunny location are far less afflicted. What we learn from this lesson is to choose a location that has good air circulation and full sun. What we know is that Discula destructiva requires high humidity for infection; therefore trees planted in mesic sites in the shade are more susceptible than trees growing in xeric sites.
Discula destructiva is a soil born disease. Dogwood trees inflicted with anthracnose will begin to show signs of infection by dying from the bottom up. The lower branches will become twiggy and will not flower or leaf-out. This is the opposite of what you may see if a tree is losing foliage along the upper branches because of drought stress, for example. A tree that is stressed from lack of water or nutrients will, generally speaking, begin to show signs of trouble from the top down.
Our lovely Cornus florida var. rubra (my second go around with this species; the first was killed by anthracnose) shows signs of drought stress every year, usually during the dog days of late summer. I place the hose at the base of the tree, allowing water to gently flow overnight (never wet the foliage of a dogwood). Visibly, the tree will perk up. Typically this will need to be done every few days, until the next soaking rain. Any tree that is stressed from lack of water is more susceptible to disease. Along with monitoring our tree for drought stress, and because we plant densely beneath the tree’s boughs, I have found these measures, thus far, have served to prevent an outbreak of anthracnose.
Note how beautifully grows this dogwood. Despite the rain-soaked droopy bracts, you can see its gorgeous overall form. The level branches grow horizontally and there are no bald, twiggy areas.
Cornus florida var. rubra Lynn Fells Parkway, Melrose, Massachusetts
bract – In botany, a bract is a leaf-like structure surrounding a flower or inflorescence. The colorful bracts of poinsettias, the hot pink bracts of bougainvillea, and the bracts of dogwoods are often mistaken for flower petals.
The open florets (pea-green colored) and unopened buds are surrounded by the rose red-shaded bracts.