I managed to choose a very cooperative Amaryllis from a local nursery. It budded up and bloomed in a timely fashion for the Christmas Eve gathering at our house. As always, the leaves and stems became too heavy for the pot, so I added some long branches of holly to help hold them upright. I like the extra bit of Christmas cheer the holly adds.
This amaryllis was a perfect choice for this week’s Whatsoever is Lovely challenge hosted by Xingfu Mama.
The Christmas Cactus (Schlumbergera) I bought as a prize for a family game was so beautiful I wanted to keep it for myself. I will keep my eyes open when I go out this weekend for a similar plant. I have had several over the years, but I only have a small Thanksgiving cactus now. I want to find a new Christmas variety and grow it into a large specimen.
I’ve experienced rebloom on my Christmas cactuses, but never to the extent of the number of flowers they have when you purchase them brand new from their greenhouse start. This one may prove my experience with them wrong. I hope the winner of this plant enjoys the beautiful pink flowers.
When viewed sideways the flowers look like a bird on the wing. This Christmas Cactus bloom is part of Xingfu Mama’s Whatsoever is Lovely Challenge.
I am taking part in XingfuMama’s Whatsoever is Lovely Challenge this week. I was able to raise six Monarch Caterpillars from the egg stage on a Milkweed leaf to full-size caterpillars. They are developing in their chrysalis now. I genuinely find their chrysalis stage beautiful. The amazing and luminescent green is adorned with gold that looks like metal.
In years past, during the hotter months of summer, I saw Monarch Butterflies almost daily. However, all butterflies and many insects seem scarce this year, which is worrisome. I’m hoping they rebound and are back in large numbers next year.
This beautiful moth is my choice for the “Whatsoever is Lovely” challenge hosted by Xingfu Mama. I got several good captures of it feeding on the flowers of the Butterfly Bush. The plant lives up to its name, although it resembles a tree instead of a bush. We cut it back, and it grows even taller.
The multiple blossoms of the flower sprays make it a perfect setting for photographing butterflies and bees. They are usually so intent on moving from flower to flower they ignore the trespass of my camera into their space. I love the way the photograph captures the face of the moth and the blurry whirr of its quickly fluttering wings.
I’m not good at sitting still. These flowers were created with shell and coral on the beach of the Cornwall Hotel in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
A yellow swallowtail visited my Catmint yesterday.
The beautiful butterfly floated above the flowers, giving me time to capture a photo of its yellow wings against the bluest skies and fluffiest clouds.
The butterfly had newly emerged from its chrysalis. Its vibrant colors and details are a dazzling display of our Creator’s love. Unafraid, it allowed me to capture its beauty as it visited the blossoms, sipping the nectar from each small floret. At that moment, I was truly blessed.
This post is part of Skywatch Friday and Whatsoever is Lovely. Thank you to the hosts for the opportunity to take part in the challenges.
I’m starting Six on Saturday, with a view from my bike on the Glassboro-Williamstown Bike Trail.
The trail has several swampy areas. They are lovely and fairylike, with their carpet of duckweed. This photograph is my entry in the Cosmic Challenge—Waterways. Wild Roses border the swamp and trail.
Cinnamon Ferns grow lushly in the woods, and some are beginning to send up their center spike.
Wild asters are delicate in appearance but durable wildflowers.
Beautiful Mountain Laurel in full bloom.
The best photo of the day and the best scent was the honeysuckle. A bumbling bee was drinking the nectar as we passed by.
The beautiful honeysuckle and the bumblebee are my choices for Xingfu Mama’s Whatsoever is Lovely Challenge. I just noticed while looking closer that I also photographed two small ants on the honeysuckle leaves, unbeknownst to me at the time.
The beautiful moss spores are my choice for The Cosmic Photo Challenge/What’s Flowering Where You Are? Before the recent snowstorm, I grabbed my camera and took a woodland walk. I was amazed at the vivid green of the mosses and lichens. In places where the sun shone through the branches, I noticed some of the mosses had already sent up spore capsules. I’m going to stretch and say these are a type of bloom.
If I had to rate these moss spores for beauty between 1-10, they would receive a 10+ from me.
Skunk cabbage has also emerged in the dead of winter. Here are some of the ‘knobs’ before the snow covered them. I read an amazing fact on the PFEIFFER NATURE CENTER site: some skunk cabbage plants can be over 100 years old. Wow, I will feel a bit more awe over them when I take my next woods walk.
Next time when I become a bit winter-worn and weary over the cold weather, I’ll remind myself of those skunk cabbages never giving up.
As always, lichen on fallen branches are a welcome touch of green.
Whatsoever is Lovely? Definitely the small and delicate bits of green I found in the woods. I wish I could have a large garden plot filled with mosses and lichens in the winter.
The Farmer’s Almanac counts down how many days of winter are left. As of today, there are 63 days left until Spring. Whoo-hoo! I have some sprigs of daffodils showing above ground, and this week, when storms knocked over pots planted with tulip bulbs, I saw that beneath the soil, the bulbs had rooted and were beginning to send up shoots. I hope being overturned won’t stunt the growth.
I have no flowers or interesting dried-out sprigs left to display in a vase for Rambling in the Garden – IAVOM. Happily, I do have a few evergreen plants growing in the gardens. I have gathered sprigs of Nandina, English Ivy, Barberry, and Vinca vine inside today’s vase. I also added a dried-out tassels of a Bald Cypress. To add some interest, I plucked Wisteria pods off the bush and added those into the mix.
The bouquet is so-so, but the vase is a treasure I found this week. Searching for unique containers to craft into hanging planters, I stopped at the local Goodwill. Usually, I find junk, and a caution for other treasure hunters; I often have seen Dollar Store items in the Goodwill store marked at $1.99. To be blunt, this always annoys me. I am often tempted to point it out to the manager, but the earnings from Goodwill Industries go to non-profit groups. Many of the stores have very high rents to pay in the shopping centers they are located in. For this reason, I don’t say a word.
Back to the find in the Goodwill, though. I found treasure—two beautiful McCoy Swan Vases. One is pink, and the other is blue. I used the blue vase for today’s arrangement. I do not have an eye for antiques as some do, but I love McCoy pottery, and I am good at spotting that variety.
My beautiful McCoy vase twins are, Whatsoever is Lovely to me—a perfect choice for Xingfu Mama’s Week Two Challenge.
My IAVOM (In A Vase on Monday) floral arrangement has a definite Christmas theme. Although no flowers are left blooming in my backyard, I have many evergreen trees and bushes to use in vases. The vase in this arrangement is a heavy-bottomed crystal bowl. The weight helps keep the long piece of floral foam/oasis steady. I used an entire piece for this project and trimmed the top corners. to a Christmas tree shape.
The bottom layers are inserted into the oasis with a downward curve, the following few middle layers are inserted straight out, and the top layers of greens are inserted pointed upwards. I added a few purchased roses and some baby’s breath. A friend created the tree with me, and it’s interesting how different our trees were when finished.
One caution if you create a similar tree, place the container in the sink for a few hours. Gravity caused the water in the oasis to drain downward. The result was overflow. I also put a plate under the arrangement; a bowl would have worked too.
Here is the same arrangement in color. Both of my sons wore the shoes around the bottom. The little pink slippers were mine as a baby. They look sweet around the Christmas tree; having them out allows me to cherish the memories again.
The baby shoe display is part of Xingfu Mama’s ‘Whatsoever is Lovely’ challenge. I applaud all who take the time to offer challenges for WordPress bloggers, and a big end-of-the-year thank you to the readers who leave such gracious feedback in my comment section. It is appreciated.
Are you like me? Sometimes, I gift myself with computer programs that enable me to blog more easily, write with better grammar, and listen to my words read back to me. I thought it would be a good idea to share throughout this week, along with some other reposts, the computer apps I use that make life easier and help me move toward completing goals.
Today’s app is Ribbet.com. The program helps me create beautiful photos with some tweaking for fun. I feel like a child again when I decorate my favorite garden photos with this app. The photo above is tweaked with Ribbet.
Here is my original photograph, a summer capture of Verbena blossoms. It’s very pretty on its own, but I love to play around with overlays to take images from normal to showy.
The Verbena Blossoms are part of Cee’s Flower of the Day
I uploaded the Verbena photograph to Ribbet.com. Square photos work best on my blogs, so I cropped the image first and Auto-fixed the colors. My computer shows content on the left side and a work area on the right.
To read the symbols on the toolbar, hover over them, and you will see the name appear. I used Effects to add a matte border to my photograph. You can strengthen the matte effect by sliding the strength bar to the right. You can use the same effect twice on the photo to create a strong image. There is also a Text symbol that enables me to add words.
I added some Bokeh lights using the Overlay filter. I did the opposite with the lights and diminished their effect so that they would only lightly highlight the photo. At this point, I was satisfied with the image and saved it to my computer.
I find both photos perfect for XingfuMama’s Challenge, Whatsover is Lovely.
Brightly hued-flowers surround me at any venue I visit this time of year. I love them but also enjoy the simplicity of Paperwhite blooms. The fragrance is authentic Spring at the beginning of Winter. The flowers are small, the size of a half-dollar, but they have a strong and resilient scent. Mine have been blooming for several days and they still are very fragrant.
The Paperwhites are my entry into Cee’s Flower of the Day challenge.
It is gratifying that all the work involved in forcing the bulb was done for me. I purchased the plant already growing, near bloom, and anchored in a sturdy bulb vase. My responsibility has been nothing more than enjoying the beautiful scent.
In another room, I have a Hyacinth bulb beginning to grow. I have done some tweaking to bring this flower into bloom. In early September I bought the bulbs. There are five in all, and I placed them in their package in my refrigerator produce drawer. When I put the bulb in a vase with the water level just touching the bottom, the roots quickly began to grow. I’ll update the blog when the plant blooms.
Whatsoever is lovely in my life this week is flowers blooming in November, filling my home with sweet fragrance.
Writers have written many an eloquent word and quote about the beauty of fragrant flowers, and although the quote below doesn’t specifically mention fragrance, I like the image it suggests. How fragrant life would be if we looked at the whole world as a garden.
“If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden.” — Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
