Fill The Frame

It has been a while since I submitted an entry to Gardening Gone Wild's Picture This photo contest. You get busy and wander off. Then a good deal of time can pass before you wander back. I wandered back at the right time for the photo contest and am in the mood to procrastinate from other more pressing things.

The theme for this month, Fill the Frame, is a study in composition. It made for a good mind exercise while I was digging out unwanted forsythia and philadelphus in the ridge top garden and gave me a photo task in my comings and goings during the day.

I took all kinds of pictures with Fill the Frame in mind. Then I had to pick just one for the contest from the already narrowed down contenders. Not easy. These were all the possibilities.

This picture while nice was too easy.

The Sheffie Mum



Was the purpose of the task to fill the frame completely with a single theme or is the composition of different objects in a unifying theme more important?

Stacked Stones



Pictures of the Lush never seem to win. This one makes me want to climb over the fence and see what else is out there.

Out Riding Fences - Desperado




Waiting and Turning




Going To the Chapel




Still Life In The Zinnias




This was a very strong contender.

Anemone Creek




Captured By Fall



Our judge this month Saxon Holt says "Lesson #1 in all my workshops is to analyze what you are seeing and make the camera say what you want it to say. Fill the frame with your message. Don’t waste space in the photo with information that does not tell your story."

The light was just perfect yesterday and this Birch tree glowed inside the darker forest. I couldn't walk by without it calling out to me. I wanted to capture that glow.



So I zoomed in, eliminating all distractions and filled the frame with glowing birch.

This is my entry for October's Picture This photo contest exactly how it came out of the camera, no cropping and no enhancing.

Glowing Birch



Now I must attend to more pressing matters. I have rhododendrons and daffodils to plant and more things to paint.

Familiarity Breeds More Asters

I've been here a few seasons now. The more I see and the closer I look the more diversity I keep finding here on the low spot of a North Carolina mountaintop. I'm living in a taxonomists nightmare or nirvana, one or the other.



I do believe I have found another aster. It is white. The center turns red rather quickly. The petals are so small they are almost non-existent. The plant is short for a fall aster and gets rather woody. The flowers are distributed all along the stems forming a dense mass of tiny petaled aster froth.

Who knows what kind of commingling all these different asters could be up too. Is it a species? Is it a hybrid? Is it a cultivar? I found this new aster in several locations pretty spread apart. It isn't a singular oddity.



This new one makes three fall blooming white asters. You can see the standard white aster has much bigger flowers and a yellow center.



Here we have the New England Aster with the smaller flowered Blue Wood Aster that is looking rather white in comparison. I wonder if the color intensity changes over time or if there is just a natural genetic or environmental variation in the intensity of blue? There is no standard blue with outliers. The blue hue covers the spectrum and then it has the annoying habit of changing colors with the light quality.

I want a taxonomist to come here and do a study and give me the report, nightmare or nirvana. I don't have the time for such endeavors.



The Sheffie Mum is a fall blooming aster for all intents and purposes. It is causing some of the traffic to slow or stop. At least that is what I am blaming the rubbernecking on.



Like I didn't have enough aster alliteration around here already, the yellow sport of the Sheffie Mum came to live here from Fairegarden, Tennessee too. I think it is safe to call it yellow, though it is a bit off like the pink of its parent.



They come up here looking for this. I think this qualifies as real fall color.



A lot of them slow down or stop to look at this. More than few of them get out of their cars to take pictures. It still freaks me out just a little to be a roadside attraction. But that won't stop me from giving them more to look at over time. They really only see a little bit of the much larger attraction.



Invited guests will get this view.



And with this picture I am calling fall on the north face of Hebo Mountain. It is still pretty green out there though. I must be having a very localized variation in color. It seems variety is my lot in life.

Are We There Yet?

Maybe it will look more fall like in the morning light.



It's gettin there.

Fall Like Colors

Don't come peeping yet. The hills are still pretty much green. If you look up where it all begins, there is the faintest hint of fall like colors.



While we wait, color can be found in the under Lush.



The yellow sport of the salmon pink Sheffie Mum is opening its first flower. I eagerly await the revelation of its true color.



The Blue Wood Aster comes in several colors. From a near white with the faintest blue blush to a deep purpley blue. Look at those burgundy leaves of the Clematis virginiana. Damn vine. Why does it have to be so invasive. It has so many redeeming attributes.



There is a totally accidental color flow with the silver colored stock tank covering the well head, the white aster and the Feather Reed grass. Next spring the spigot will flow. I put it in the threaded drain hole now to give the impression it is attached inside thinking it might be less likely to wander off. At a certain point in these parts, outdoor watering is eliminated for the season. I can make a working connection next year.



Blue asters as far as the eye can see. Everywhere there are blue asters.



These are the colors I must live with while I wait for the real colors of fall.



There is no need to rush I suppose.

Pre-Fall

I'll take it to mean I am working much more steadily these days and not that I have been unobservant. I am seeing all kinds of colorful and interesting post bloom hydrangeas this year. This is probably another H. paniculata cultivar. The post bloom is a near purple shade of maroon. I must be seeing them before the final frost fade to brown.



The Sourwood trees, Oxydendrum arboreum I notice every year. They turn a brilliant red way before most of the other trees turn. With their white post bloom panicles hanging in great clusters they are a striking sight. I want me one.



Actually the hills are still quite green. As I drive back and forth to work there is little to no color yet. Just a few early turners tucked into the forest.



The trees need to get busy. Another brother is headed our way on the 15th. We want him and his lovely wife to be impressed. I imagine we'll have some blue asters about at the least.

A Shock To The System

The first real blast of cold has come and gone. It arrived with a wicked wind as it always does and made a valiant attempt to snow. It was cold and I put my long underwear on.

I have that option. The Sheffie Mum that is only now starting to bloom has to take its chances. It hovered in the low thirties for some time and just barely hit 33, so all is well.



I have adjusted to the cold quite well actually. I can cope. It is the annual transition that is such a shock to the system. The same thing happens when the heat first arrives in summer. The transition period is a little brutal.

Blue asters bloom unfazed. They wait all year until the end is near.



Baby shrubberies in the garden to be need to prepare. This blast of cold will send them a message no doubt. That and the ever shortening days. I wake up in the dark.



The weeds in the garden to be are the main attraction now. They bloom en masse having long ago buried and hidden any plantings I did not find the time to weed around. I'm lucky to have my blooming weeds.



Another season is coming to an end. Out there in the Lush a garden is in hiding.



I will find it again next spring and keep adding to it. One spring in the future it may be a shock when the garden to be appears and it has become the garden that is.

Portal To Another World

There is a place that is a door to another world.

Wamboldtopia



Enter and you never know which way the mind will be lead.



A magical world built and sculpted in stone.



Blanketed with the changing and ephemeral life of a garden.



A world inhabited by wee invisible peoples speaking to the subconscious.



In all the little details.



And guarded by the spirits of gods.



Enter.

Anti Gnome

And A Dome