Showing posts with label opengardensniagara. Show all posts
Showing posts with label opengardensniagara. Show all posts

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Lifehacker Thursday

The Cannas have finished blooming for the year, and the tubers are tucked away till next spring.  The leaves are a significant size.  That  means light in combination with the lines on the leaves make for wonderful abstracts.

And I found this with the news today:

There's a Top 10 website called Lifehacker.  In April, it celebrated its 10th anniversary and posted its most popular top ten lists of everything.  Take a look HERE.  With the website's success, Thursdays are known as "Lifehack Thursday". 

 

Thursday, December 25, 2014

What About Our Christmas Traditions!

Our Christmas Traditions
Today we celebrate Christmas traditions - not our own, but those we might not know about.

In Japan, the vast majority is not Christian, yet there is a celebrated Christmas tradition - a trip to KFC and the greeting "Kentucky for Christmas".

In the Ukraine, they will sometimes decorate their trees with spider webs. This is based on a Ukrainian folk tale of a widow's family so poor they had no money to decorate their tree.  A spider took pity on them and spun a web in gold and silver around the tree.

In Iceland it is "Beware the Yule Cat" - a Christmas fiend that terrorizes the countryside targeting those who didn't receive new clothes for Christmas.


In the Czech Republic, carp is the celebrated Christmas dinner. This is followed by the saving of a dried (cleaned) scale from the Christmas fish which is kept in one's wallets for luck over the coming year.




Have a great Christmas Day today.

Monday, December 15, 2014

The Forest Landscape


Hi everyone,
Motion blur that's done with the camera is a lot of fun.  The first is at Balls Falls last month just as we transitioned from fall into winter.  The fallen leaves are on the ground with a little snow, but there's no leaves left on the trees.  The colours are muted and for me, speak clearly ofo the Canadian landscape.

Our second image is a winter image from last November.  It has the added effects of colour through Topaz Lens Effects.  








Thursday, December 11, 2014

Dahlias are Romantic

I realize these are florals and that will be posted in Open Gardens Niagara, and thought they were so pretty that you would like to see them at the Marilyn Cornwell blog too.  Dahlias are beautiful flowers that are a delight to photograph.  So many different shapes and styles of petals.  Some are geometric and uniform, and others are wavy and flowing.  These are all from Ralph Suttell's Beamsville showcase growing garden.







Saturday, December 6, 2014

Poinsettia Trials - Pick your favourite!

December 5th was a great day for both the gardener and photographer in me.  Grimsby is very close to the Vineland Research Station and it had its Poinsettia evaluation open house yesterday.  They grow poinsettias for evaluation by the commercial trade to find new and better poinsettias for market.  There are only a few places where the poinsettia trials take place, so it great to be invited to vote on our favourites so that they get a sense of what is popular with the public.

What would make a better poinsettia?  It would be things like: One that grows straight up so that the branches don't break off when you take it out of the plastic sleeve.  One that has lots of coloured petals to make a big show.  One that grows quickly to come to market sooner.  

So there I was with Brian, my brother, who is the lily hybridizer, going from plant to plant looking at the differences and improvements.  I saw so many fellow gardeners too - it was a wonderful event.  

Check out Vineland Research at: 
http://www.vinelandresearch.com

There's a cogeco video at:
http://www.vinelandresearch.com/news/poinsettias-research

Here are some of the highlights: