I was at the Pike Place Market and just adored the huge buckets of daffs as well as all the amazing dried flowers and tulips right now.

On this photo, I’ve blurred the background to make that center one pop a bit. Do you like the effect, or do you prefer the more realistic look? I’m very interested in your reaction.

Visit Mellow Yellow Monday and Macro Monday for other takes on those themes. And how about Blooming Friday, a bit early?

I was at the Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle, and some intrepid flower growers were there in their usual spot in the North Arcade, showing their heaven-on-earth wares. This one grower had tulips, forced in a greenhouse heated with propane; so expensive to grow, so welcome to see and purchase. The others, mostly Hmong immigrants, had the usual spectacular, unique and incredibly cheap bouquets of dried flowers, but that’s for another day.

For more blissful pink, visit Pink Saturday. For more brilliant colors, try Color Carnival. And for more straight-out-of-the-camera shots, visit SOOC.

All these dahlias and other flowers were from my backyard. Not too bad when you figure that we just moved here in May and there were no flowerbeds, just some big shrubs and one huge cedar tree. I’ll get the perfect photo for that someday, but not yet. Today we have two bouquets. We had some people over and of course I had to pick flowers. Please let me know which photo you like best! For more Flowers for today around the world, click HERE.

Today I went to the Des Moines WA farmers market. The bunches of flowers are so thrilling, and I was able to buy organic fruit from the farmer, a wonderful thing. For more beautiful flower photos, click HERE.