Now that the roses are planted they are just taking off, late in the season though it is. This is a Broadway rose, so happy now. For more Mellow Yellow Monday visions, or Macro Monday close ups, or even Color Carnival scintillations, go on and check them out.

This rose is the only one of the 18 we planted whose name I do not know. All the others had tags, but this one had only a lovely pink rose to choose by. I took it. If anyone knows its proper name, that would be great. The flowers are unusually large, and it’s fragrant!

For more flowers from all over the world, visit Today’s Flowers.

This is one impressive mountain. We were happy that the weather was just so perfect for a traipse around Mt. Rainier National Park. Here’s a view of our local but world-class mountain with some clouds coming up behind. Click on Scenic Sunday for more scenigasms around the planet.

We’re back from camping near Mt. Ranier. The weather gods smiled upon us; so perfect for shadow shots. Here’s one from a sweet nap we got to take. Ah, camping! Visit Shadow Shot Sunday for more fascinating shadows around the world.

This dahlia, from Cindy’s amazing garden in Kent, WA, looks almost like a lotus or a peony. Enjoy for Pink Saturday!

Picked these this week. Not everyone knows about lemon cucumbers, upper right. Pick them before they get bright yellow, when they really look like lemons! They are quite delicate and delicious.

Happy Macro Monday, Mellow Yellow Monday, and Ruby Tuesday. We are off camping and will return in a few days. Ta-ta!

This old fashioned hydrangea is so easy to grow. I had some hydrangea flowers at my wedding, years ago.

As long as it is kept moist (“hydra” is a clue!) with nice humus-y soil,  it will be happy even in full sun up here in Seattle, but I think it is easier to keep happy in shade or part shade, where it still blooms nicely. Another neat thing about them is that prunings made in the spring are extremely easy to root. Just push the stems into the shaded soil, keep moist, and soon you will have new hydrangeas!

For more lovely flower photos, visit Flowers for Today, now entering its second floriferous year!

We are going camping next week again, this time near Mt. Ranier. In thinking about our trip, of course I had to look at some of the photos from last time, and thought I’d post this late day shot of a nearby campsite. The combination of clear light, tall trees and the late hour makes for some mighty fine shadows. Thank you to Tracy of the Hey Harriet blog, who created of Shadow Shot Sunday, for opening my eyes to the sweet penumbra.

Don’t you just want to sit down at that table?

This is a newer variety of coneflower, or echinacea. It’s more pink than mauve and the petals don’t recurve too much, and it’s not too tall, either. More like a pink daisy, really. Here it is, blooming in my garden, with geraniums I overwintered downstairs and some peach-colored impatiens behind it.

Next year I think I’ll try doing impatiens from seed, as I hear they aren’t too hard and grow easily, plus I could use a lot of them. I read that with extremely fine seed, the thing to do is get a little clean sand and mix the fine seeds well into it; then you can handle a pinch of the sand fairly easily and not get a jillion seeds at a time.

Visit Pink Saturday for more pinkness of all kinds. Such nice people, such sweet pink photos!

And the Color Carnival folks like bright pink, too, ideally combined with red and peach! If you like color, you’ll LOVE Color Carnival.

Browsing through the archives, looking for a good sky photo (it’s been gray lately) I found this one. It was taken on a very cold January day, but the sky was so brilliant! Happy Skywatch Friday to all.