It was a very good year

Posted on February 4, 2026 by composerinthegarden

Winter is always the best time to look back at last year’s garden. I love that I can suddenly forget the deep snow and bitter temperatures while immersing myself in photos and videos full of color and life. Now is the perfect time to look back at the garden in bloom, while ignoring the current view from my window. Window well filled with snow

It was an enormous relief to be able to take photos again after my shoulder healed from surgery in February. The April garden came alive with fresh green leaves and delicate spring flowers. view of April garden from above

May burst over the edges of the garden beds and it was hard to choose just one photo. The entrance to the circle garden is one of my favorite views, an arbor covered in roses and surrounded by other flowers in May. Arbor covered with pink roses and surrounded by pink flowers

Did you know that human eyes can detect more shades of green than any other color? The endless rains in June made for lush foliage in both garden and woods – this scene spoke to me, inviting me to enter the green green woods.

July became a riot of color from the daylilies and summer perennials, yet the foliage spoke almost as loudly on a misty day. View of the circle garden from the deck in July

August was prime pollinator season, with insects gathering as much food for winter as possible. Echinacea purpurea was especially attractive to both humans and bumblebees.

The rains returned after a dry July and August and the garden was often enveloped in fog and mist. The arbor into the circle garden once again became a favorite view, inviting me to linger under it and study the layers of the garden.

Circle garden entrance in September

Enveloped by the same fog, the woodland walk matured quickly in its second year thanks to the heavy rains of spring and fall. The was Pixie’s favorite spot to keep watch in the woods. Woodland walk in fog in September

The low brilliant light of October mornings made for drama in the front walk.

By November, bright color had moved from the flowers into the leaves, a riot of autumn hues. Autumn leaves in the garden

I gathered my favorite video clips in a similar fashion, portraying each part of the circle garden and woodland walk through the seasons.

With 2025 behind us, I wish you a new year of beauty, laughter, and great adventures as 2026 unfurls before you.

A greenness grew

Posted on May 1, 2024 by composerinthegarden

Spring drew on…and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps. ~Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

On this first day of May, I look out the window and see green – green! – on the tree branches. Flowers have been blooming since February – snowdrops, crocus, daffodils, tulips – and their color is so welcome. Yet when the woods light up in delicate green, it feels as if spring is complete.

The ostrich ferns have completely unfurled, refracting light through their intricate fronds

while the sunlight pouring through white daffodil ‘Bella Coola’ turns its petals translucent.

The weather has had several wild swings this spring, hot summer temperatures for days in early spring followed by deep drops into bitter cold, the process repeated again and again. Yet the plants have survived somehow, resilient and beautiful.

Parts of the garden have come fully into bloom – the grape and lemonade bed is always its showiest this time of year.

‘Shirley’ tulips with forget-me-nots

‘Shirley’ tulip

Grape and lemonade bed

After years of tolerating our makeshift garden gate built of fence parts, I found a beautifully crafted gate to create a dramatic entrance into the garden.

Green isn’t the only foliage color in the garden now – the red Japanese maples have fully unfurled their leaves

as has the purple smokebush entwined with Clematis ‘Sweet Sugar Blues’. Our wild violets (Viola sororia) have been blooming for weeks and are now joined by the soft blue and white blossoms of hardy geraniums.

My latest garden video traces the gradual emergence of spring and the light that shines through the garden at this bewitching time of year.

Wherever you are in the world, and in whatever season you find yourself, may you see the light shining through the beautiful things around us.

Playing with color

Posted on February 2, 2024 by composerinthegarden

We continue to have beautiful snowfalls snowy arbor

followed by melt, thaw and freeze. On gray winter days, there is nothing more satisfying than gathering colorful pictures of the garden together to create a story. April arbor

In one way, it is looking back at the previous year’s triumphs in the garden stone steps in the mist but in another, it is a way of tracing the exploration of an idea over a long period of time.

Even as I gradually transform the garden into a more pollinator friendly place, I will probably never let go of a few of those plants that inspired me to garden in the first place. I have removed hundreds of plants in my garden in the past three years – those that were invasive or did not serve the eco-system that I am trying to build – and added hundreds of others that contributed to life in the garden. But roses (click on any photo to see a larger image)

‘Rose de Rescht’

Rose ‘Ambridge Rose’

Rose ‘Complicata’

Rose ‘Eglantyne’ and clematis

daylilies, peonies, lilies, and others

Lily ‘Tiger Babies’

Daylily ‘Lavender Stardust’

Peony ‘Coral Charm’

‘Strawberry Fields Forever’

‘Etched Eyes’ and ‘Diabolique’

Woodland peony

– many of which are interlopers in the North American landscape – still have their place in my heart and I’ve kept those I love the most and which do no harm. My garden behind the fence is still arranged by color and I continue to play in that most ephemeral of paintboxes.

Siberian iris

Tulip ‘Princesse Irene’

Bearded iris ‘Tiger Eyes’

Bearded iris ‘Flava’

Camassia

Tulip ‘Angelique’

A few weeks ago, I collaborated with a group of gardeners on YouTube to create our own videos of how we interpreted the Art of Gardening, then sharing links to each other’s videos. I immediately gravitated to playing with color – it is something that looks good on the screen and people in the northern hemisphere are desperately hungry for color during our long gray and white winters. Creating short garden videos has become a new form of expression for me – I continue to learn and refine my skills while working to add new techniques. My instincts proved correct – my collaboration video has gone a bit viral and gives me encouragement to pursue this avenue of expression. Enjoy a feast of color for the eyes, spring is not far off!

Fascination of Plants

Posted on May 20, 2023 by composerinthegarden

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. ~Albert Einstein

I’ve been deepening my friendship with the camera this past year and using it to discover the beauty in my garden from new perspectives. As April shifted into May, the daffodils were replaced by Alliums and Camassias, bringing blue and purple hues into the garden. The grape and lemonade bed remained full of blooms until mid-May

but it was the graceful details of the Camassia flowers that drew my attention.

Alliums always remind me of giant lollipops on tall stems and they grow everywhere on the property, ignored by deer and rabbits.

Nature is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere and the circumference nowhere. ~Blaise Pascal

On closer inspection, those lollipops are globes of hundreds of small florets, each equipped with stamens full of pollen

beloved by bees.

A few late tulips reigned for weeks in the garden. Double tulip ‘Angelique’ is a favorite – her ruffled petals in shades of pink and white are a prelude to the peonies that follow.

A closer look at ‘Angelique’ in the garden

convinced me to cut a few blooms and photograph them on a light table to reveal the delicate translucence of her petals.

The poetry of the earth is never dead. ~John Keats

Almost black tulip ‘Queen of Night’ is another favorite and is still blooming in the garden. It’s sleek shiny flowers add deep notes to the color scheme

and captured the attention of Miss Pixie, who only sniffed and didn’t decapitate – she’s almost two now and has become a good garden citizen.

Columbines grown from seed pop up throughout the garden and are always welcome – the flower shapes with curving “tails” fascinate me.

Columbine ‘Wiliam Guinness’ was so covered with tiny spider webs and dew that it positively glistened in the morning light.

Iris season has begun, first with the dainty historical iris whose name I have forgotten but who always blooms first at the top of the hill overlooking the garden.

A closer look reveals subtle veining and her delicate yellow “beard” that gives Iris germanica its common name of bearded iris.

Bearded iris ‘Tiger Eyes’ looks as handsome in bud as it does in flower.

When our native ostrich ferns (Matteuccia struthiopteris) unfurled their long fronds, I took a closer look through the lens to discover all manner of shapes and patterns.

Ferns are well known as an example of fractals in nature – not only are fractals aesthetically pleasing but also thought to be stress-reducing. Looking into the heart of a fern is endlessly intriguing to me.

If you are as fascinated by plants as I am, you might be interested in the Fascination of Plants Day which was celebrated this past week on May 18. Founded by plant biologists as an annual celebration to raise awareness of the diversity, beauty and usefulness of plants, it has inspired plant-based events across the globe. (Special thanks to Steve Schwartzman of Portraits of Wildflowers for introducing me to FOPD) Whether you are a scientist or an artist or both or anything in between, enjoy and appreciate the wonderful world of plants. I wish you all a May filled to overflowing with the wild and elegant beauty of nature.

What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives? ~E.M. Forster

For more on growth patterns of plants and some musical fun, see my post on the Fibonacci number series in nature and music.

Embracing Winter

Posted on February 3, 2023 by composerinthegarden

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape. Something waits beneath it; the whole story doesn’t show. ~Andrew Wyeth

My idea of winter sports has always been a good game of chess in front of a warm fireplace. Yet there is no denying that the longer I garden, the more I appreciate the garden in winter. As the plants turn a crisp gold and then a rough brown, the eye focuses on the paths, the arbors, the bare trees and shrubs -“the bone structure of the landscape.”

The details of plants become fascinating in a new way. The rose hips ripen and soften as the weather changes

while the cone in coneflower suddenly makes its presence known.

Milkweed pods open and release their seeds, carried by gossamer wings.

An early morning stroll through the garden is dramatic in the winter sunrise.

And when snow arrives, those bones suddenly don a frosty gown that transforms everything.

It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it. ~John Burroughs

We had an especially pretty snowfall last week that I was able to capture on video – enjoy the winter wonderland.

“Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.”
~ Mary Oliver

composerinthegarden

Gardening in harmony with nature

Tag Archives: garden photography