A recent visit to Seattle’s Volunteer Park Conservatory was a sun and shadow symphony

Sun and shadows decorate some barrel cactus and gray-green succulent spikes at Seattle’s Capitol Hill Conservatory

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Taken recently at Seattle’s Volunteer Park Conservatory. The amazing irony of a cactus in bloom! The flowers are very small, perhaps a centimeter or so, or less than half an inch.

Magenta pink flowers on a barrel cactus

More themed photos at Macro Monday, I Heart Macro Saturday, Today’s Flowers, Floral Friday, Weekend Flowers, Thursday Floral Love, Ruby Tuesday 2, Pink Saturday and Straight out of the Camera Sunday. Have a great day and thanks so much for stopping by.

We have a neighbor who does a fine job with foxgloves, or digitalis, and yesterday I finally got to stop and take a photo when the flowers were at their peak, the sun was out, and the light was at a nice, slanty angle. Flowers look good all the time, but taking a photo of them is not as easy as all that, at least to get a photo that you want to look at twice. Isn’t their white picket fence the perfect backdrop?

Tall foxgloves, or digitalis, bloom along a white picket fence

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These wonderful leaves were in a planter outside a commercial building in Seattle. What a difference some backlighting makes! The leaves might be a kind of dracena. Stay back!

Yellow and green spiky leaves in sunshine

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I love this kind of bromeliad flower. My mom used to live in South Florida (today she would have been 96 years old!) and she grew them in her yard. This pretty specimen was grown by the Volunteer Park Conservatory in Seattle, and it was blooming in May. Since this is one of the flowers in my book about the flowers there, I know the name is Silver Vase Bromeliad, Aechmea fasciata.

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Late summer flowers are much appreciated. I went to Swanson’s Nursery in Seattle (love that place) and had some photo fun with the flowers on stunning display. I wanted to show these pretty coneflowers (echinacea) before the fall gets too far along, even though they are from all of two weeks ago. In your garden, when the petals fall off, you might leave the seed head centers for the birds.

Joining up this week at Mellow Yellow Monday, Scenic Sunday, SOOC Sunday (straight out of the camera), Ruby Tuesday 2, Outdoor Wednesday, Today’s Flowers, Floral Friday, Weekend Flowers, Pink Saturday, Macro Monday, and Shadow Shot Sunday 2. If there is only the coneflowers photo below, please click on Sara’s Fave Photos Blog above to show the rest of the blog. Thanks for visiting, and come back soon!

Football lily, or Haemanthus multiflorus, is a new flower for me. I found this in the Wave Hill conservatory, on my recent visit to New York City. I am including the second photo so you can see the fascinating green starburst, spiky bud form as well. The flowers were almost as big as my hand!

You might want to check out Today’s Flowers, Weekend Flowers, Floral Friday, Ruby Tuesday 2, Macro Monday, SOOC Sunday (straight out of the camera), and Pink Saturday for more photos with a theme. If you have arrived via a link, there might be more recent photos here. Click on the Sara’s Fave Photos Blog curly letters above to see!

This photo was taken of an outdoor planter on the street outside of Trudy’s Floral Design in Seattle, which by the way is having a Holiday Open House pretty soon on Thursday, November 10. Cyclamens are very beautiful in person, but their graceful flowers are hard to capture “on film,” as we used to say. That’s the great thing about digital; you can just take a dozen or so until you get one that works.

Take a browse at all the talent at Pink Saturday, Today’s Flowers, Weekend Flowers, Macro Friday, Color Carnival, Macro Monday, Macro Flowers Saturday, and Outdoor Wednesday. While you’re here, do look around, perhaps trying a new tag or category, clicking on the Sara’s Fave Photos banner to view the complete blog if you see only one photo below.

Took a walk this afternoon and was lucky enough to happen past this pretty scene in the brief bit of sunshine, before the cloud cover took over. Isn’t backlighting the greatest? I just love the way it looks in a garden. I like it so much I’m calling this my Best Post of the Week.

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Today I went on the Federal Way (Washington) Garden Tour. It benefits the Federal Way Symphony and I got to see six of the nine gardens. Whew! Here’s a delightful water feature from an amazing hidden jungle in the Hendricks garden.

For more fascinating shadows seen all over the world, visit Shadow Shot Sunday. Or try Scenic Sunday, or perhaps SOOC (straight out of the camera) Sunday.

You might try a search for “shadows” or clicking on that tag while you’re here. Returning to the latest post is a click away, on Sara’s Fave Photos. Thanks for visiting!