A beam of sunshine, a couple of blooming houseplants, and a close up lens. Ah!

Visit Pink Saturday, Shadow Shot Sunday 2, Today’s Flowers, Weekend Flowers, Macro Friday, Macro Monday, Macro Flowers Saturday, Floral Friday, Color Carnival, Ruby Tuesday, Weekend Reflections, and Cactus Monday for great memes. Check them out! And the banner above with Sara’s Fave Photos will get you the complete blog here.

Peruvian lilies (alstroemeria) look so good, and I thought you might like to revisit some summer flowers from my garden. Aren’t the little red lines cool? They are very easy to grow but can take over. Right now I don’t care and just want color and sun!

Check out Shadow Shot Sunday 2, Today’s Flowers, Weekend Flowers, Macro Friday, Macro Monday, Macro Flowers Saturday, SOOC Sunday (straight out of the camera), Floral Friday, Outdoor Wednesday, Scenic Sunday, Color Carnival, Ruby Tuesday,  and Mellow Yellow Monday for endless photo fun. Browse around here by clicking on the banner Sara’s Fave Photos to see the whole collection.

In honor of tonight’s Solstice, I am featuring a photo taken on the other Solstice, the first day of summer in June. Please enjoy these pink peonies from my garden. In just a few hours, the sun dips to its lowest point in the northern hemisphere, and then begins its stately progress towards more light. We are ready.

You might like Today’s Flowers, Weekend Flowers, Macro Friday, Macro Monday, Macro Flowers Saturday, Pink Saturday, SOOC Sunday (straight out of the camera), and Floral Friday for some fun in the world of photoblogs. Click on Sara’s Fave Photos for the complete blog here, and thanks for visiting!

This photo is about the green, green leaves as least as much as the simple but pretty yellow-and-white blossoms. How DO they get that foliage to be so perfect? And it’s straight out of the camera (see SOOC Sunday), too.

Check out Mellow Yellow Monday, Today’s Flowers, Weekend Flowers, Macro Friday, Macro Monday, Macro Flowers Saturday and Floral Friday for lots of fun in the photoblog world. Try something new here before you go, and click on Sara’s Fave Photos to get the entire blog at your fingertips.

Hope you don’t mind my continuing to delve into the archives at exactly six months opposite our weather right now. These irises in my garden were photographed on the same session as the sunny June garden photo a couple of posts down. In June there are so many lovely candidates for the blog that many pretty flowers get passed over. In December we are extra glad to see them. I hope you agree.

Take a look at Shadow Shot Sunday, Outdoor Wednesday, SOOC Sunday (straight out of the camera), Today’s Flowers, Weekend Flowers, Macro Friday, Macro Monday. Macro Flowers Saturday, and a new one, Floral Friday. Have fun! If you’d like to see more here than the one photo that might be showing below, click on a tag like “My Garden” below the photo, or just click on Sara’s Fave Photos above.

Since it’s so gray and cold out now as we approach the winter Solstice, let’s take a look at its opposite, a scene from my garden in June. Isn’t the pink, fluffy meadow rue sweet? Looking at the photo data I see that it was taken at 6pm. It’s a long time dark at that time now, of course. But isn’t it nice to know that the sun will return, in all its garden glory?

Visit Shadow Shot Sunday, Scenic Sunday, Outdoor Wednesday, SOOC Sunday (straight out of the camera), Pink Saturday, Today’s Flowers, and Weekend Flowers for more photo entertainment. Fun and free! Of course, feel free to browse around here first, perhaps checking out a new tag or category. Click on Sara’s Fave Photos for the complete blog.

A visit to a friend’s garden yielded some actual flowers blooming. These little pretties look as good from the back as the front, I think.

Visit Ruby Tuesday, Outdoor Wednesday, SOOC Sunday (straight out of the camera), Shadow Shot Sunday, Today’s Flowers, Weekend Flowers, Macro Friday, Macro Monday, and Macro Flowers Saturday for lots of photo fun. Of course, you are invited to look around here. Clicking on Sara’s Fave Photos will give you the complete blog.

Don’t you wish someone gave you this bunch of roses? I know I do. Let’s pretend you have them right now. “For me?” “Yes, for you!” “Why thank you!” “You are so welcome. You deserve them.” There, doesn’t that make your day?

Visit Ruby Tuesday, Shadow Shot Sunday, SOOC Sunday (straight out of the camera), Today’s Flowers, Weekend Flowers, Macro Friday, Macro Monday, and Macro Flowers Saturday, when you get a moment. While you’re here, try a new tag or category. And always find the latest post here by clicking on Sara’s Fave Photos above.

The Holiday Open House at Trudy’s Floral Design in Seattle was so much fun yesterday. I met all kinds of really nice people, signed some books, and of course amused myself with photographing some of the beautiful displays. What a great party. If you missed it you must come next year.

One lovely woman said I inspired her because I created the Flowers book with only my pocket camera, not a lot of fancy equipment. That’s a pet peeve of mine, the idea that you must have super-expensive, complicated (and heavy!) equipment to get great photos. Just not true. If you are interested in learning more about my simple approach to photography, please download the “7 Secrets” pdf to the right in the sidebar. And then please write and tell me if it helped you.

If you have a moment, visit Pink Saturday, Shadow Shot Sunday, SOOC Sunday (straight out of the camera), Watery Wednesday, Weekend Reflections, Today’s Flowers, Weekend Flowers, Macro Friday, Macro Monday, and Macro Flowers Saturday. It’s loads of fun to see the talent of people around the planet. If the photo of orchids in the vases is the only one here, click on Sara’s Fave Photos for more. Thanks for visiting!

Oh, I love the Volunteer Park Conservatory. Is it any wonder I made a book about it? A recent visit to their unendingly beautiful and changing displays yielded this photo of orchids in a stray beam of sunlight. And just for fun, there’s a bonus photo below showing one of the unusual and creative plant combinations that delight me so. That one is SOOC Sunday (straight out of the camera), but I have tweaked the orchids slightly.

Visit Pink Saturday, Today’s Flowers, Weekend Flowers, Macro Friday, Macro Monday, Macro Flowers Saturday and Shadow Shot Sunday when you get a chance. And if you’ve arrived via a link, be sure to click on Sara’s Fave Photos to see the entire blog.