These potted blueberry bushes in a friend’s healthy garden are just the cat’s meow when it comes to fall color. Aren’t they incredibly brilliant? Hard to believe that a plant with so fabulous a fruit pleases the eye so much, too.

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more red and Color Carnival for more color of all kinds. And check out SOOC (straight out of the camera) shots for more unedited photos.

While you are here already, you might try a new tag or search term, just to see what’s around. And if you’d like to get to the latest post, just click Sara’s Fave Photos, here or above.

I took this old-fashioned rose photo at Highline Botanical Garden not too long ago. It’s a little garden (a few acres) right north of SeaTac Airport that’s just a delight, rain or shine. And the plants don’t mind the low-flying planes.

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more red wonderfulness. And you might click on the tag “red” or the category of “Ruby Tuesday” while you’re here, hmm? Visit Watery Wednesday for more cyberwetness. You might also try Color Carnival, or Scenic Sunday. To reach the latest posts do click on Sara’s Fave Photos, here or above.

If you love peppers you’ve got to get down to the Pike Place market and see the peppers. What a display! Is there anything prettier than a pack of perfect peppers? Last year I bought a string of them and they dried nicely to use in soups and stews all winter long.

I love this photo and am tagging it Best Post of the Week.

Visit Ruby Tuesday and Color Carnival for more great photos on a color theme. And this one is straight out of the camera, or SOOC. While you’re here you might as well try a new category. Vegetables/Fruits, perhaps? And to get to the latest post here, you can click on Sara’s Fave Photos, here or above.

Went to a new friend’s house and was so happy to see these cheerful plates in her kitchen. I love the colors! And did you notice that the plates are all in the same color order? Now that’s neat, in more ways than one.

Visit Ruby Tuesday, Blue Monday and Color Carnival for more very colorful photos, SOOC for more straight-out-of-the-camera shots and Weekend Reflections for more neat reflections.

You might try a tag like “red” to see what comes up. Or if you’d like to get to the very latest post, click on Sara’s Fave Photos here or above.

I can hardly believe that I got any tomatoes at all, but here is proof. September is a bit late for first tomatoes, though, don’t you think? I threw a couple of handfuls of dolomitic lime on the soil at planting and it made a huge difference. No more yucky blossom-end rot, and the vines look GREAT. Here in the Pacific Northwest the soil tends to be pretty acidic, thus easy success with rhodies, blueberries and evergreens. But tomatoes seem to prefer a more alkaline soil.

Gardening note: I was always hesitant to use dolomitic lime because I was sure it must make the soil more acidic—because it was “lime” and that had to be acid, right? WRONG. Silly me. It makes the soil more alkaline just like it says on the box and is great for plants like lilacs, peonies (mine flowered for the first time!) and hellebores, all of which really hate an acid soil.

How about browsing the “Vegetables/Fruits” category here—then visit Ruby Tuesday for more things red and ruby, Color Carnival for more brilliant color, and SOOC for more straight-out-of-the-camera shots. And if you’ve arrived here from a link, do click on Sara’s Fave Photos to see the full blog with the latest and the greatest photos.

At the Pike Place Market in Seattle a couple of weeks ago, the dahlia display was breathtaking. Every color, every form, and armloads of them, all grown locally of course. Here are some red ones for you to enjoy.

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more redness of all kinds. Perhaps click on the tag “red” while you are here? Visit the latest post always by clicking on Sara’s Fave Photos above.

There might be a special name for this kind of marking on flower petals, but I don’t know it. If you do, please clue me in. [later: Striated! Thank you!] They aren’t really stripes; more of spots and stripes mixed together. Anyway, I just love the way it looks. I took this in Seattle’s Volunteer Park dahlia garden that I just discovered this week, maintained by the Puget Sound Dahlia Association. Enjoy!

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more ravishing photo redness and SOOC for more straight-out-of-camera shots.

If you got here by clicking on a link, it might not be the latest post—Sara’s Fave Photos above will take you there. Be sure to try a tag or search for “dahlia” and see what you get!

I think this orchid is a kind of phalaenopsis, or butterfly-shaped one, but I can’t be sure, because when I am photographing flowers all thought of identification flies out of my head. I just see how beautiful they are and yearn to capture them perfectly. This beauty lives at the Volunteer Park Conservatory.

To all my international visitors, I hope the addition of Google Translate makes your time here more enjoyable. People from around the planet visit this blog and I am so grateful and happy that tools like Google Translate exist. Welcome to all!

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more ravishing redness, Color Carnival for more brilliant colors, and SOOC for more straight-out-of-the-camera shots.

If you like, search this blog for Volunteer Park Conservatory and see what other gems I’ve captured from there. And return to the latest post, always, by clicking on Sara’s Fave Photos above.

We went to Sequim (pronounced “skwim”) WA and had a great few days of vacation, camping and doing the relaxation thing in the very warm weather. Notice the cloudless blue sky reflected in the window? Meeting some friends for lunch, the restaurant had a particularly fine windowbox. I envy people who can combine flowers so well. Well done, Oak Table Cafe! And the food was good, too.

Visit Ruby Tuesday for more reds of all kinds. And this shot is straight out of the camera, or SOOC, where you can see more like that. Color Carnival has more bright, vibrant colors. Weekend Reflections has more visual reflections, too.

Browse around here for something new today. Perhaps a tag called “rain” might refresh on a warm day? And if you’ve arrived via the permalink, do click on Sara’s Fave Photos for the latest posts.

A recent visit to Seattle’s Pike Place Market flower vendors delighted and impressed, as always. What a place. Do you know that the flower vendors can only sell the flowers they have grown themselves?

Here’s a dahlia bouquet with the original touch of being ringed with marigolds. Or maybe they are coreopsis. Don’t you want it on your kitchen table, whatever they are called?

Visit Macro Monday, Mellow Yellow Monday, Color Carnival and Ruby Tuesday after poking around here. If you’ve arrived via the permalink, Sara’s Fave Photos has the regular blog.