{"id":19159,"date":"2014-08-28T00:01:21","date_gmt":"2014-08-28T07:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=19159"},"modified":"2014-08-28T00:01:21","modified_gmt":"2014-08-28T07:01:21","slug":"point-and-shoot-heaven-photographing-a-garden-in-minnesota-just-before-dusk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/point-and-shoot-heaven-photographing-a-garden-in-minnesota-just-before-dusk\/","title":{"rendered":"Point-and-Shoot Heaven: Photographing a Flower Garden Just Before Dusk"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"rudbeckia,<\/a>
Yellow rudbeckia, pink echinacea and spiked liatris grow along a garden walk. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall<\/em><\/p>\n

A little rain, a little dirt, a little sun, some red wiggler worms, and a few kitchen scraps and you\u2019ve got yourself a flower garden. My Minnesota gardener friend makes it look that easy.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m pretty sure she and her husband put hours of back-breaking work into that garden — composting, planting, mulching, weeding, deadheading, chasing pests. But her garden doesn\u2019t<\/p>\n

\"Coral<\/a>
Honeysuckle. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

look like it. It looks like it just happened. Like it wants to be there on that slope between the house and the woods, just because.<\/p>\n

And why not? Why wouldn\u2019t rudbeckia and echinacea be blasting color every which way on this spot? Why wouldn\u2019t hydrangeas be nodding their flawless white pom-pons just so over the stone pathway?<\/p>\n

And how about that lone cluster of honeysuckle blossoms and those crinkling<\/p>\n

\"Pink<\/a>
The five-petaled phlox blossom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
Platycodon, aka pink balloon flower.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Spikey<\/a>
Spikey stalks of liatris, waist high.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"Large<\/a>
Fat white pom-pons of hydrangea blossoms.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Lush<\/a>
Lush sedum tucked away in a quiet\u00a0 spot.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"White<\/a>
Yarrow blossoms with near-microscopic centers.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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\"The<\/a>
The underside of a\u00a0 lilium blossom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
Day lily — pink, yellow, coral.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Yellow<\/a>
Rudbeckia. All photos by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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hosta\u00a0leaves? Or the phlox blossoms, spiraling out five perfect, pink and magenta petals every time? Aren\u2019t they inevitable?<\/p>\n

The days are long on the outskirts of Minneapolis this time of year. Latitude checks out at around 44 degrees north. So when Jon and I and the kids arrived at my friend the gardener\u2019s house just before dinnertime earlier this month there was plenty of soft northern sunshine still lighting up the place.<\/p>\n

It was point-and-shoot heaven. Light was coming at the garden from every direction. And the<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Nice Adirondack chair, but I have a feeling the gardener doesn’t sit much. Those round flowers on the left are blue globe thistle. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

evening was still, no breeze, which meant my friend\u2019s flowers could hold a pose long enough for my point-and-shoot to take its time getting them into focus.<\/p>\n

It was a guilty pleasure for me. I\u2019d been invited to a social event. Everyone else was indoors enjoying the hors d\u2019oeuvres and the human companionship. And I was out here in the garden. Just me and my trusty point-and-shoot, elbow deep in nature doing what nature does \u2013 with some help, in this case, from my friend the gardener.<\/p>\n

More garden stories at “In the Garden With the Grammar Geek: Is It Ever OK to Use the Passive Voice?”<\/a> and “My Garden in Summer — But Is It Really Mine?”<\/em><\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
Minnesota has lots of waterfalls. This one is home-made — pondless and recirculating. On the lower left, a big, leafy bergenia, which bore rose-colored flowers earlier this summer. Around the rocks are ajuga and sedum. The delicate, silvery plant is artemisia. Above it, top right, is burgundy heuchera. On the far side of the creek, more artemisia and a patch of hosta. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hosta<\/a>
Hosta, no blossoms, just amazing leaves. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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FYI photography buffs: my camera is a Canon G12, which I bought a few years ago when my old Nikkormat film camera broke down. I thought I’d just use the Canon until I could get myself a fancy SLR or the like, but the G12 has proved so light-weight, handy and amazingly good at getting photos without any fiddling around with speeds and f-stops on my part that I have gotten addicted to it. One of these days I’ll read the directions and figure out how to use it manually . . . m<\/em>aybe after my book<\/a> is finished, published and duly promoted.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"Rudbeckia<\/a><\/p>\n

A little rain, a little dirt, a little sun, some red wiggler worms, and a few kitchen scraps and you\u2019ve got yourself a flower garden. My Minnesota gardener friend makes it look that easy. Read more and see some photos.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19177,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[34,1306,403,472,445,88,82,32,1307],"class_list":["post-19159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-my-rocky-spiritual-journey","tag-dont-miss","tag-flower-garden","tag-flowers","tag-garden","tag-minnesota","tag-nature","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-photography","tag-point-and-shoot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}